Jason shuffled along the buckled sidewalk, simian-gaited, his thick torso rocking on bandy legs. On the other side of the chain-link fence, the dogs kept pace in watchful silence. Now and then, he stopped to stare at the muscular black bodies of the rottweilers, which were casually alert, their tongues lolling in the thick heat. His head bobbed up and down in an eerie pantomime of primate behavior, the rottweilers’ huge heads mimicking the motion. Roy got out of the van to stand in the partial shade of its squat profile. His brother and the dogs continued their silent parade down the bright new fence. From time to time, Jason reached out a furry red hand and jiggled the fence, enticing one of the dogs to jump at his flattened palm in frustrated fury. Bits of sunlight glittered from the razor wire topping the fence.
Roy found a familiar reassurance in his brother’s oddities. He watched Jason come around the corner of the property, a location momentarily screened from the building by a eucalyptus tree, its slender gray-green leaves dusty and motionless in the humid valley heat. Jason reached into his pants pocket and produced a package wrapped in butcher paper. He opened the package and leaned forward, sniffing the contents with care—ground meat laced with chloral hydrate, a canine Mickey Finn. He hunched over, his large head shifting from side to side as if to ward off detection. Then he lurched near the fence, shoving gobs of meat through the wire squares, high up, out of reach of the crushing teeth.
The larger of the two dogs gulped the meat down without
hesitation. The smaller one, the female, sniffed suspiciously, eyeing Jason. He crouched forward and pushed another gob of meat through the fence and backed away. This time, the dog took the meat into her mouth.
“Sleepy time, dogs. Oh yes, sleepy time, dogs.” Roy hummed to himself and moved toward the gate. As he drew near, the dogs broke away from Jason and trotted to a security gate complete with electronic locking mechanism and two-way speakers. The smaller of the dogs bared her teeth, a barely audible rumble coming from deep within her throat. Roy looked on them with a sort of approval. They were creatures of menace, trained not to bark, more threatening in their silent watchfulness than slavering junkyard dogs. Passersby hurried their steps or crossed the street to avoid the dogs’ attention.
Roy pushed the buzzer next to the gate and waited.
A half acre of asphalt surrounded a large single-story corrugated-iron building topped by a small cupola. The clerestory windows of the cupola were painted black, with the unpainted exception facing Holt Boulevard and the gated entrance into the compound. Above the streetside door, a new, professionally done sign in foot-high black lettering against a Caltrans yellow background proclaimed GOLDEN STATE FIREARMS. The coils of razor wire topping the bright, new eight-foot-high chain-link fence suggested a sort of recent prosperity. It was a safe haven, an untouchable retreat. Roy nodded to himself. A place with something soft at its center.
Jason padded after the dogs, grinning in anticipation, happy again to be back in Roy’s good graces. A suggestion of movement in the unpainted window confirmed Roy’s suspicion that they were being watched. “Hey look me over …” Roy hummed. He had dressed for the occasion in soft chamois leather pants, matching shirt, lizard-skin boots—eight-hundred-dollar threads, topped off with a low-crowned, wide-brimmed 10x Stetson. A rich dude, flush customer. Even Jason passed muster in clean, pressed Wrangler pants and shirt, hired help.
The dogs’ ears pricked up in unison, probably responding to a silent whistle. They turned as one and trotted toward the building,
disappearing through the corrugated door, which was partially open, allowing them to pass.
“Identify yourself, please.” The voice coming from the speaker sounded tinny and slightly garbled.
“It’s Mr. Hauptman, Eric Hauptman—we spoke on the phone—and Mr. Rojas, my associate.” Roy smiled at his little linguistic joke.
“When you hear the buzzer, push the gate.”
The sound was familiar—that of institutional lockdown, doors controlled from a bulletproof booth. Roy gave the gate a shove. They were in. A visit from the Miller boys.
A smallish pear-shaped man stood back from the door, well behind the phalanx of dogs. “The dogs are okay. Just don’t touch anything.”
It was the same soft, indistinct voice Roy had had trouble hearing on the phone. The pear man was all dressed up like an urban storm trooper—khaki T-shirt, camo pants, and brightly polished jump boots, sort of a combat Pillsbury Doughboy. Hickey would be cracking up, wanting to know if he got his clothes at Banana Republic. The guy’s stomach ballooned over a tooled belt and threatened to swallow up the butt of a 9-mm Glock semiautomatic pistol. The Glock rested in a clip-on holster, easy to reach, a point of consideration.
Roy slipped into persona, smiling confidently. “I’m Eric Hauptman. This is my driver and assistant, Jesus Rojas.” He gave the name Jesus the Spanish pronunciation, hay—zoos. Roy gestured toward Jason, who bobbed his head, his tiny blue eyes bright with concentration.
“You’re Calvin Bates?”
“Yeah, that’s right.”
Bates bent down, squinting into the open action of a large-bore sporting rifle resting in a padded cradle. The bolt lay next to a small padded vise on the bench.
“As I said on the phone, I’d like you to custom a thousand-yard rifle for me. I’ve seen your work. It’s the best.” Roy delivered his slow personal smile, his teeth pale yellow against white skin and red gums.
“Where’d you see my work?” Bates blew some invisible debris from the open bolt action.
Roy spoke with enthusiasm. “Pomona Gun Show. Some Japanese guy was selling a very nice three seventy-five Weatherby Magnum. He said he’d had it customized by Golden State Firearms. That’s you, right?”
“Yeah, I know the little yeller feller.” Bates nodded without looking up. “A dentist who can’t talk English and who can’t hit shit.” He fished a large cigar from the cargo pocket on his fatigue pants. He bit off the end and spit the severed tip in the direction of a trash bin. “Ol’ Doc Jap took it to the range to sight it in. What a fucking joke. He said it kicked too hard, asked would I fix it.” Bates looked up at Roy. “I told him it would knock his Asian butt on the ground.” He shook his head in disgust. “He shoulda bought a twenty-two and stuck to tin cans.”
Roy nodded his head in shared disgust. It was easy to empathize. Roy liked “yeller fellers” even less than Bates.
Bates shifted his gaze from Roy back to the rifle he was working on. “You know, that was a really nice piece I made for him. So how come you didn’t buy it when you had the chance?”
“Like you said,” Roy replied, “a three seventy-five’s too much, unless you’re hunting really big stuff. Besides, it’s not for reaching out, is it? And the stock was too short, made for little Jap arms.” Roy grinned in conspiratorial fellowship.
Bates took a wooden match from his shirt pocket and struck with his thumbnail. He applied the match to the end of the cigar, puffing carefully until it was evenly lit. Clouds of smoke hung in the still air.
“If you think a three seventy-five’s too much, you ought to try this baby, a four fifty-eight, the most powerful shoulder weapon made. Want to stop a car, this fucker’ll do it. Purdy’s makes them in doubles, but I like the Weatherby bolt action, the strongest—five shots, three more for insurance.”
He waved his hand absently at the cloud of smoke.
“So what you’re thinking of—I mean, if you want the thousand-yard shot—is maybe a two twenty or a two seventy. The two seventy’s
got the flat trajectory, and it’s steady, groups tight. The two twenty’s fast, but not much stopping power, and to tell you the truth the loads are critical. They have to be just right or the thing shoots all over the map. The two seventy does more work.”
Roy looked past Bates to the stock blanks neatly resting from Peg-Board pins against the wall behind the workbench. “Mind if I look over the stocks?”
The dogs sat panting heavily. The male, especially laboring for breath, half-slid into an outstretched position. Bates squatted down on one knee next to the dog. “Hey, boy, what’s up?” He rubbed behind the dog’s ears, talking softly. “Hey, Nero, come on, boy.”
Roy stepped swiftly past the long workbench and the dogs and kneed Bates in the face. The male dog was too stupefied to respond, but the female struggled to her feet and staggered at Roy, a growl rumbling in her throat. Jason kicked into her side hard enough to crack ribs. Her rear end collapsed in shaky spasms. She sank to the ground with a soft whimper, feet splayed awkwardly against the floor.
Roy grasped Bates by the throat with one hand and grabbed the Glock with the other, pushing him down next to the prostrate dogs. He smiled affably.
“Surprise, Mr. Bates, you’ve got company.”
Bates sat up, a small, soft hand unconsciously rubbing his throat. His eyes shifted quickly about and came to rest on Roy, sizing things up. Too calm by half, Roy thought. He’d been fucked over before.
Roy leaned forward. “Hey, don’t you want to know why we’re here?”
Bates nodded in stupefied acquiescence.
“See, it’s like this, Cal—vin … .” He drew out the name in singsong fashion, with a hint of a musical rise on the last syllable. “There’s a family matter involved here. We’re here to talk about a guy we think you know, a guy we’ve got business with. Little guy with dark hair and a lot of tattoos, named Donnie. Ring a bell, does it?”
Bates’s face wrinkled in perplexity.
“That’s okay, Cal—vin. We’ll give your memory a jog.”
Roy glanced around the shop, his head swiveling owl-like, the
muscular cords flexing on the pale stem of his neck, the white Stetson tracking the room. His gaze stopped on a large plastic reel of heavy-gauge electrical wire. “Jace, cut off about fifteen feet of that wire there on the orange spool.” They waited in the heat, watching as Jason pulled wire from the spool and coiled it around his shoulder and arm. “Yeah, that’ll do. Now bring it on over here, and we’ll play Isaac Parker, just like when you were a kid.”
Roy turned to Bates. “You know who Isaac Parker was, Bates? He was the hanging judge at Fort Smith, Arkansas. He strung ’em up four and five at a time, an honest-to-goodness law-and-order judge. A real American.”
Bates shifted around to a position where he could face Roy more directly. “Jesus, I’d tell you if I knew about this Donnie guy, but I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Roy looked over at Jason and rolled his eyes.
“Come on, man, I didn’t do anything. You want money?” Bates’s eyes shifted back and forth between Roy and Jace. “Money’s no problem. I’ll make you any kind of gun you want. For Christ’s sake, tell me what you want, you’ve got it. You don’t have to hurt me, man.”
Roy shook his head in mock disapproval.
“Jeez, Cal—vin, what kind of guys do you think we are? We’re family guys. You a family guy, Calvin? I mean, are you married—wife, kids, that sort of thing?”
Bates shook his head.
“No? That’s sort of what I thought. Well hell, I’m not married, either. A studly type, such as yourself, does better prowlin’ on his own. Right?”
Bates looked over at Jace’s face, which was eager with anticipation, and then up at Roy. The shock and fear were beginning to register. “Yeah, I suppose so.” His attempt at a grin sort of slid down his face.
“Like I said, we’re family-oriented.” Roy turned solemn. “That’s the point here, maintaining family values. See, a member of our family was hurt, so we’ve been thinking tit for tat, an eye for an eye, like in the Bible. Now it sorta looks like your family’s gone to the dogs, Cal—vin. Little joke there.”
Roy pointed his forefinger up toward the iron slope of the ceiling and made a twirling motion. “Okay now. Here we go. Judge Jesus will string up the criminals, the little one first. She’s still sort of lively.” Roy laughed. “You don’t know whether to be relieved or sad, do you, Calvin? Thought we might be stringing you up. Gee whiz, not a nice thought, but the point is, this dog’s first.” He put his forefinger alongside his nose and gave a knowing wink.
Bates’s body sagged. His face seemed to hang, the flesh pulled downward by gravity and fear. “Hey look, ask me anything. I’ll tell you anything you want to know. What did this Donnie look like? I don’t know anybody named Donnie.”
Roy nodded at Jason, who deftly looped the wire around the smaller dog and tossed the remaining wire over the steel I beam that supported the lights and a small hoist.
“Wait a minute, Jace. Slide the hoist down here. Let’s do this right.”
Jace’s head twisted back, eyes glittering. “I’m hanging the dog, Roy. This is the bad one. It tried to bite me, and now I’m hanging it.”
“I never said different, dickbrain. Just go on down and slide the hoist back. Then tie the wire around the hook. See, it’ll be easier.”
Roy shrugged elaborately. “What can I do, Bates? The guy’s got a mind of his own. Now this guy, Donnie, says he knows you. Truth is, we found your phone number on the wall next to a note, ‘Call for a good time.’ Naw, just kidding. Anyway, Donnie did some work for you. Now my guess, it wasn’t a completely legal deal.”
“I do stuff for a lot of guys. I don’t remember any Donnie.”
“Okay, Jesus, take ’er up.”
“Aw shit, come on, please.”
The rottweiler’s feet waved frantically in the air. Roy and Jace watched intently. Gasps of guttural wheezing filled the hot stillness of the shop. A cascade of urine streamed from the swinging dog and splashed on the cement floor. Roy stepped quickly back to keep his outfit from being splattered. Jason Miller’s hands tensed on the hoist’s chain, his gaze fixed on the strangling dog. The dog’s paws flipped in the air in spasmodic jerks.
Bates moaned a sort of distracted prayer. “Oh my God, Jesus, oh my God. You bastards.”
“Now, now, Cal—vin, don’t be downhearted. You’ve still got old Nero here.” Roy paused. “Nero, right?”
Bates nodded numbly.
“Yeah, well, now listen up. Nero’s not out of the woods yet. Jesus here doesn’t much care for Nero, either. Do you, Jesus?” Roy leaned back against the workbench. Jason’s gaze remained fixed on the dead rottweiler swinging gently from the hoist. “So what about Donnie Miller, Cal? Mind if I call you Cal? I figured it would be okay, ’cause we’ve been involved in an intimate emotional experience, witnessing the death of a loved one, right?” Roy’s face wrinkled in concerned inquiry.
“Anyhow, Donnie Miller, a little guy with tattoos. Oh yeah, and he used a lot of bad language, but a good guy underneath. Heart of gold, like Jesus here, except, of course, he was a liar, a cheat, and full of bullshit, but otherwise a nice guy.” He chuckled to himself, shaking his head back and forth. “Yup, outside of that, he was a prince.”
Roy figured breaking a guy down was just a matter of timing, and it was going just about right. Bates was coming around in a nice predictable sequence: Oh my, what’s happening here? Then: How can you do that? You have no right! Finally, it dawned on the dumb dickheads that they were fucking helpless and that they were looking at a couple a guys who just didn’t give a shit. That’s when they rolled, just like Calvin here.
“So now that we’re all acquainted, and such, Cal—vin, when did you talk to Donnie?”
“A little guy, you said, with a lot of tattoos, right?” Bates looked up at Roy for confirmation.
“That’s my man Donnie. I knew you’d turn out to be a good listener.”
Bates nodded in eager camaraderie. “I set a guy like that up with one of my clients a few weeks back, around the middle of August. Only he called himself Miller McDonald, not Donnie Miller.” Bates kept nodding his head vigorously. “Shit, yeah, I remember him.” He glanced back at Roy. Some life had oozed back into his face, the
ever-present Judas of hope tracing itself in his expression. “Mind if I have a smoke?”
“Naw, go ahead.” Roy smiled. “But just bring a cigar out of that pocket, okay, Cal? No little surprises.”
Bates fished out another cigar and went through the ritual of lighting up. Clouds of blue smoke twisted in wraithlike shapes in the column of sunlight streaming in from the clerestory window.
“So what about this Miller?” Roy sounded interested, conversational, empathetic. He shifted easily from one pathology to another.
Bates frowned in concentration. “Well, he came around here talking about being a hunting guide. Said he could hook up hunters with Desert bighorns. Said he knew the desert like the back of his hand. I figured he was full of shit, but then one of my customers tells me he wants to complete the grand slam.”
“Grand slam?”
“Yeah, the big four, the four kinds of bighorn sheep in North America. It’s a big deal with some hunters, a very big deal, since the desert bighorn is mostly illegal to hunt and hard to find.
“Well anyhow, this Miller guy starts in telling me he’ll take the guy out on a guaranteed hunt. No sheep, no pay. So I went for it and lined up Miller as a guide with this doctor. Guy’s a big deal. Has a special clinic for infertility.”
The dead rottweiler swung gently from the wire. The shadow of the forelegs played across Bates’s chest and face. He squinted up his eyes each time the sunlight hit his face. “Guy forked over cash for expenses and agreed to pay a big bonus for a sheep that would make the book, the Boone and Crockett record book.”
“How big a bonus?”
“Ten thousand.”
“How much for Miller?”
“I told him a thousand. He went for it big-time. That’s when I knew he didn’t know shit about poaching bighorns.”
“Why’s that?”
“The dumb fuck didn’t know the price of a ticket.”
“So when did you see him last?”
“Right here, near the end of August. He came by to show off his
AR-fifteen and get me to make it full automatic. I said, ‘What for?’ He sort of grinned and said he had more going on than taking dudes into the desert, like he was some sort of bad man.”
Roy frowned. “So what happened to the big-ticket doctor? Did he get his big horny sheep, Cal—vin?”
“Naw, he called me sometime in early September, all pissed off. Said the guide didn’t know jack about hunting. So I lined him up with another guy I know about.”
“Yeah, what guy was that?”
Bates puffed on the cigar, blew a smoke ring. He looked up at Roy. “I don’t want to get anyone in trouble. This guy could get in big trouble for poaching.”
“Not as much trouble as you’re in, Cal—vin.” Roy looked thoughtful. “You want to be able to find your dick when you take a leak, right, Cal?”
Bates’s hand moved inadvertently to his crotch. “This guy’s like one of us, right?” Roy’s expression remained neutral. Bates tried again. “You know, a hunter. He calls himself ‘Redhawk,’ but he’s in the Bishop phone book as Eddie Laguna. That’s it. I don’t know another fucking thing. Just that this Miller guy was full of shit. Wish to God I’d never seen him, man.”
“Yeah, Calvin, he was full of shit, but here’s the funny part. I hope you’re paying attention here. You see, he was our brother, Calvin. We’re the Miller brothers, Roy, Jesus here, and Donnie. And guess what? Donnie’s dead. Some shithead left him out in the desert to die, maybe this fucking doctor, maybe this Redhawk.” Roy looked sad. “So things didn’t work out for brother Donnie, did they?” Bates’s eyes widened with fear. “And here you are, speaking ill of the dead. No bonus from the doc for Donnie, just dying of thirst in the desert. Sort of an ugly way to go, don’tcha think?” Bates nodded slowly, unable to take his eyes away from Roy’s face. “And Calvin, there are lots of ways to go that are ugly.” He paused, smiling down at Bates. “So you can see we’re anxious to talk with the doc and this Redhawk and see if we can clear up a few details.”
Roy felt the first edge of rage flickering at the edges of his eyes.
“Yeah, definitely need to talk to the doc. So who is he, Cal? What’s his name? How do I get ahold of him for a little chat?”
“I leave messages with his exchange. I only called him a couple of times. The other times, he called me when he wanted something.”
“So what’s the number at the exchange?’
“It’s in the address book next to the phone there.” He pointed over toward the far wall. “The brown metal one.”
Roy looked over at Jace, who was still humming to himself and swinging the dead rottweiler back and forth on the hoist.
“Jace, keep an eye on Calvin here. Okay, Jace?”
“Umm-hmmm, okay, Roy,” he hummed.
Roy threaded his way between the prostrate male rottweiler and Bates to the rough-sawn plywood desk, which was strewn with gun catalogs and advertising pamphlets singing the praises of various firearms, reloading equipment, and sighting devices. He found an old dime-store metal address book, the kind that flipped open to different letters by moving the slide up or down the side of the cover.
“What name, Calvin?”
“Sorensen, Dr. Michael Sorensen.”
Roy slid the key up to the S and pushed the metal tab at the bottom of the tin cover. “Just a phone number. No fucking address, Calvin.”
“I told you—I call and leave messages, or he calls me.”
Roy stepped back to where Bates leaned against the workbench. “That’s talking back, Calvin. Talking back is rude.” Roy’s backhand snapped Bates’s head back. Blood leaked from his nose.
“What kind of doctor?”
“A gynecologist.”
“Hear that, Jace, a pussy doctor. Old Doc Sorensen is a pussy doctor.”
Jason exposed his teeth, nodding at Roy.
“What town’s he live in?”
“Pasadena, I think.”
“You think? Why do you think Pasadena, Calvin?”
“He mentioned it a couple of times. Complained about all the
gooks moving in.” Bates grinned up at Roy, trying for Aryan brotherhood.
“Now that’s helpful, Calvin.” Roy stood looking down at the pathetic grin. The blood had dried on Bates’s upper lip and had crusted around his nostrils. Another bag of pain. “Well, we got to be going, Cal—vin. We’ve got a busy social calendar.”
Bates slowly nodded his head, sighing with relief.
Roy slipped the Glock quickly from his belt and pointed it down at Bates.
“No. No. Please, no.” Bates held up his hands, as if somehow he could ward off death.
“‘No. No. Please, no.’” The red creature’s mouth mocked Bates’s words in eerie imitation.
“Put down your fucking hands, Cal—vin. Can’t you take a joke?” Roy flashed a smile. “You know, I’ll bet you’re sorry to see us go, Cal—vin.”
Bates nodded his head and shifted his eyes from the Glock to peer up at Roy. Here it was again, the pathetic face of hope. “But you know how it is, Calvin. When you gotta go, you gotta go.”
The first shot caught Bates in the chest, knocking him backward onto the floor, cheating Roy of the look of surprise. He stepped quickly forward and looked down. Bates’s eyes had already begun to lose their luster.
“Shit!”
He stepped back to avoid the splatter and put a second shot into the dead man’s head. He looked up at his brother, really smiling now. “‘When a job’s worth doing, it’s worth doing right.’ Words to live by, brother Jason.” Roy took the .458 Magnum from the cradle and slipped the bolt into the pocket of his jacket.
“Never know when we might have to kill a car. Right?”
Jason scrabbled forward and began tugging at the drugged Nero.
“We don’t have time, Jace. Here, take the gun.”
Roy handed the Glock over to his brother.
“You get three shots, just three. And don’t get blood all over yourself. After that, you can start a little fire. Then we gotta talk to Redhawk and the doctor.”