Hooker had never ridden in the back of a truck, much less a military truck. The canvas canopy reeked of wax and old diesel fumes. The truck wove its way sluggishly between piles of mechanical equipment and groups of people. It gently squealed to a halt, more from dust in the large brakes than anything resembling speed or the need for maintenance.
Hooker was dressed in the same work uniform as the Marines with who he had been riding. The two soldiers on the end unlatched and dropped the tailgate. In two files, they all jumped off the end and formed up on the old concrete airstrip. On a single command, they marched off to some undisclosed duty and not of Hooker’s concern.
As they moved across the concrete pad, another group moved alongside while Hooker and one of their groups switched places.
Hooker and two others slowed, and the rest of the group kept marching. The three walked and talked quietly. All around for hundreds of yards, there were companies or groups moving or setting up and tearing down cannons, howitzers, and groups of tents along with radio equipment. The entire old balloon landing site was abuzz with the movement of military practicing being military.
The only strange activity was companies of soldiers marching four and six abreast, carrying large bags of sand or dirt. As they marched along, they were leaking the dirt where they were marching. Over to one side was a group of men filling bags from a couple of dump trucks. Hooker shrugged at the inefficiency of the whole transfer but chalked it up to the military being the military.
Hooker looked around. “Isn’t this much activity bound to create a lot of interest?”
John looked around through his eyebrows as his head was down looking at a layout map. “We do something like this—two or three times a year. We could just do all of this on the bases, but this gives us all some needed practice in combined convoys and working the Navy, Marines, and those other guys from down south.” The three smiled.
Alex took over. He nodded with his head at the pattern painted on the concrete—the old worn markings Hooker guessed were a carryover from the days of the dirigible. Alex dispelled the theory. They were only painted to look old. “These landing pad markings are important to you. On the night, you must be standing in this circle. Your sister must run over this circle and along this orange arrow. We put some phosphorous in the paint, and at night, it will still be glowing faintly until about one in the morning. After that, the moonlight will confuse the issue enough if the enemy comes snooping around, they won’t see anything out of the ordinary.”
He nodded at the area where two trucks were practicing getting over two large long humps of dirt. The ridges were about eight feet high. “Those ridges are their set up. If they run between those—they will be lined up on here. In the bay, we have a new buoy with a red over green set of lights. That will be their target. If they get to the break and then run toward the buoy, they will run straight over this arrow. You will chase them and then stop here to shoot. You must stop. This will start the timed process. Once you have stopped, you then cycle your gun. They need to be one hundred feet away from you. We figure they will be running at about four miles an hour, so when you first shoot, they will be about forty feet from the doors.”
John took over. “You will know when to shoot by this small red light.” He nodded over at a jeep sitting idle with just a driver. As the man pulled an imaginary shotgun up to take aim, a small red light came on. It blinked three times and went dark. “As soon as the light comes on, everything is set to roll with the pull of your trigger.”
Alex resumed the explosives run-through. “The charges will ignite from only twenty feet in front of you. Those are all the special charges so they’re more flash and smoke than anything else. Those are the magic of Boombowski.” They all smiled. “Those lead out both ways and will run as a fan of two arms circling the door zone. As they progress, they will be getting wider and more violent. Once the ignition hits about one hundred feet from you, then the C-4 will start kicking in. This is all being buried by those men marching with the bags of dirt and sand.
“By the time we have wrapped the entire field, the second round will have already started out in front of you again. That is exactly one and a half seconds for you to cycle your gun and fire each time. It will be a fast one-two or cycle-shoot in your mind. You have five shots. The total is seven and a half seconds for everything to happen.
“The doors take one second to open or close. They will start to open one second after you take your first shot. By the second shot, your sister should be at the top of the ramp. We will close the ramp at the fourth shot. With the last shot, we have laid an extra two feet of dirt across the field. We have a field of flat explosives under everything which is timed for the grand finale. When the ring closes for the fifth time, the entire field will end up in the air. We think when it has all landed, there will be at least a foot of dirt cover over the entire door.”
“That’s a lot of explosives.”
“Controlled explosives, but it also means when you shoot the last shot, you need to turn and start running—but you are going to trip. Stay lying down. You will be in the raining earth from heaven zone.”
“Why don’t I just keep running?”
“Because it’s going to feel like you are at ground zero when the San Francisco earthquake hit back in ’06. That was about an eight-something on the Richter scale. This might feel more like a nine, and you can’t run in it. Just lie down and ride it all out.” He looked at Hooker’s face and shrugged with a smile. “You can run if you want, but when the field goes off... everyone is going to get knocked on their asses. It’s why we’ll have mattresses at the bottom of the ramp for your sister and friend.”
“So how do we get everyone back out?”
“Did you think we could blow up the world and nobody notices? We will have some police cars here in about fifteen minutes, followed by a couple of fire trucks. That should give the enemy a little time to snoop around, but not long enough to find anything.
“After about twenty minutes, the base will be notified there was an explosion at our old airbase. Only then will we roll a bit of equipment. As the sun comes up, we will build up the number of vehicles standing around, as well as people. There is a manhole over there about a hundred yards. We will extract everyone through it. There will be a bus sitting right over it. It has a hole we cut in the bottom this morning. They are installing sweeper curtains along the underside so nothing will show. It will just look like a shadow.
“We tried to keep you and your sister’s parts really simple. We will be watching, and we will control the rest.”
Hooker curled his bottom lip into his teeth as he looked around.
John finished it. “It’s going to be a show The Great Boomkowski will be proud of but can never talk about. Trust us.”
Hooker swung back around. “Oh, I do. I just hope my sister can keep up her end.”
Alex nodded in understanding. “It will either be a thing of beauty, or it could all turn FUBAR. Only on the night will we know which way it went.”
John thought. “Um, I know this is really out there, but is there any way to bring them over and walk them through it?”
“I don’t know.” Hooker looked around at the mass of people and equipment in a hyperactive state. “When do you guys finish and clear out?”
“They were done this morning. This was all just camouflage for your being here.”
“Okay. I have my meeting with her tomorrow night. I guess I’ll see if I can get her over here and run her through the plan. She’s not the one I worry about, though. It’s her companion. I don’t know how he will react or if he can even understand what is happening.” He furled his lips. “I guess we’ll find out.”
A jeep pulled up alongside the three. “This is us. Get in, Hooker. You get to ride like an officer this time.”
They wheeled out of the area as Hooker noticed three convoys were forming out of the mass confusion. It gave him hope. Hooker thought about the games his sister used to make up for them to play. The treasure hunt was always a matter of counting. So many steps here, turn, and so many there. She could lead Hooker all over a playground and end up exactly where he needed to be. It was later when he realized that in the early years, her legs and stride would have been much longer than his. By the time you take two or four hundred measured steps, you could be off by as much as a hundred feet, but at her guidance, he always ended up where he was supposed to be.
He remembered standing on a large area laid in cobblestone bricks. To Hooker, they had all looked the same. Then he had counted out the last long set of steps. She had told him to squat, reach down, and pull up the brick. He had expected nothing, but the brick eased out of the hole and exposed a wad of cloth. He removed the cloth and unfolded it. Even today, the battered Tom Mix badge with a broken pin was in his sock drawer at Uncle Willie’s house.
He had no doubts about her following directions, none at all.
John leaned forward from the back seat. “We’ll let the crew in the bunker know you might be there for a dry run tomorrow night. If you want them to practice the door, then just stomp three times on it or act like you’re shooting your shotgun. They will have a heat signature scan done by the Seal team by then and will open if it’s all clear. If they don’t open, you’re being watched.”
Hooker nodded.
The ride back from the base had been one of contemplation. Everything was riding on the little things, but Hooker knew if they were going to get this killer off the streets, it all had to go as planned.
Later, as he showered for his first real date, he mapped the layout of the field over and over. Finally, he just sat in the large shower on the small wooden bench and tried to focus on nothing.
Gradually, the field and plans were replaced by a soft smile and a ponytail of mousy blond hair. There was nothing special about the way she looked. Most people would never give her a second glance. She had the hollowed-out face usually associated with people from the Dust Bowl years. However, even when they had met years before, Hooker hadn’t noticed her appearance. He had seen how she treated Jerry, an obvious bag of damaged goods. She had stolen Hooker’s heart even before he knew her name.
The late afternoon was temperate, still nice enough to leave the top down on the convertible. The DeSoto purred its way up Stupid Hill where greedy contractors had built nothing but stupid houses on streets with even stupider names.
Hooker looked over at Candy. He liked the loose ponytail she had drawn her hair back into, along with the burnt-yellow cotton blouse—a nice touch of summer, but with deference to the coming fall colors. He smiled—the jeans weren’t new.
She smiled over at him. “Approve?”
He laughed. “Tonight, I no longer count. Just remember, you can’t sit in Manny’s lap on the first date. Stella will love you right out of the box. It’s just the way she is. Willie is a mixed bag, and I just hope he behaved himself and didn’t wear a dress.”
“What kind of dress?” She giggled. Her brother Squirt had told her about his first meeting with Willie and the really ugly granny dresses he wore when welding.
Hooker groaned. “Awe, beans in sauce. I don’t know what to tell you. I’ve never brought a date home.”
She reached out and put her hand on his thigh. “It’s all right. I’ve never been brought home before either.”
Hooker realized they were a lot more alike than either had realized.
The large chrome grill of the DeSoto nosed quietly up the street and onto the extra-large parking apron usually reserved for Hooker’s eleven-ton girlfriend, Mae West. The large car was dwarfed by the expanse of concrete capable of holding twenty DeSotos.
“Hooker, I don’t think you can park here.” Her eyes grew wide as she took in the fourteen-foot stucco wall with the protruding black locust logs around the top. The large hand-hewn black walnut gates were standing open to their full nine-foot width. The twin flanking doors stood twelve feet tall. The plaza was lined by votive candles in paper sacks in the Mexican lantern style called luminaires. There was enough afternoon light even though the desired effect was somewhat diminished, it was still romantic.
The fountain glowed. Hooker suspected Stella had scrubbed and polished the tile that morning. It gleamed almost magically in the candle and early evening light. Later, it would be romantic.
“Welcome to Hacienda Romero, the only Jewish Mexican hacienda in Norte Americano.”
She looked at him. “You’re kidding me, right?”
He raised his eyebrow and nodded toward the equal-sized door on the inside which were the real front doors. The door was opening. There was no turning back.
“You really live here?”
“I think you better ask the lady coming this way.”
Horrorstruck, Candy turned to face the smiling and waving woman in bare feet, jeans, and a Mexican peasant blouse. “Oh crap,” she squeaked. “She knows you.”
Hooker laughed as he got out of the car and came around. Stella stopped at the gate archway. Hooker opened Candy’s door.
As they crossed the concrete, Stella solemnly stuck out both her hands toward Candy. “Let me see your hands.”
She gently took them and examined them in the light from the hanging bell. The hard calluses and nicks and damage from hard work did not escape her trained eyes. “Hmm, no fork marks.” She looked up and smiled. “It looks like his treatment of your brother doesn’t run to the whole family.” She pulled the young woman in for an official hug. Stella smiled at Hooker.
Stella pulled her arm around Candy’s waist. “Come meet the rest of the crazy family.”
Stella looked back over her shoulder with an evil smile as she confided, “Dolly is going to hate you for being so skinny, and she won’t even believe you don’t have a fat neck.” Stella looked back at Hooker. “What do you even kiss on her? It can’t be her neck.” She turned back to Candy as they walked into the house, and Hooker groaned seeing Dolly through the window. “Hooker only seems to kiss us women with fat necks... don’t you, honey?”
Candy didn’t know whether to run screaming into the night or just wet her pants from laughing so hard. The food was amazing, and the non-stop stories, usually at Hooker’s expense, were hilarious.
Candy wiped at her mouth and then leaned around Hooker and looked at Stella. “Gosh—I just can’t believe we never met each other when we were visiting our boys in the hospital. I guess it was just a matter of I stopped in on my way to work, and you were probably there during the day.”
Stella nodded soberly but with a devilish look at the back of Hooker’s head. “Wasted time girl—just pure, unadulterated, wasted time—Hooker wouldn’t have been such a moving target.”
Hooker hung his face into his hands.
Somewhere between courses of the dinner part of the meal, Stella had Hooker come and help her get something in the kitchen. Once he was in the kitchen, she had him fetch something from the pantry. As soon as he started walking toward the pantry, Stella switched Hooker’s and her plates and glass and sat down next to Candy. Manny had buried his face in his palm and peeked through his fingers at Willie and Hank sitting on the other end.
Willie watched Manny as he reached out with his right hand and put it on Candy’s right hand. Giving Manny a reproving look, he just let a little Nancy slip out as he told Manny, “Now you just shush. We girls might need to talk a smidge.” He turned back to Candy. “Now isn’t that right, sugar plum?”
Hank closed his eyes and shook his head as he muttered, “Oh boy—here we go.”
Hooker returned and sized up the table. He went back to the pantry and returned with two quart-jars with ceramic and wire lids. The contents looked like clear water. Hooker took his new seat next to Maddie. He weighed Candy’s seatmates. “You’re going to need some of this... and you’ll be sleeping in your brother’s room tonight.” He passed the moonshine down. “Stella can decide which glasses she wants to break you in with.”
Willie held up his water glass. Hooker gave him a hard look. “Even with Hank driving, you will behave to some degree tonight.”
Maddie gave him an equally hard stare. She understood just how giddy her best friend probably was. He had finally met the nice girl who had seemed to steal his boy’s heart. She shared much of the same mix of pride and happiness.
Hank giggled. “Oh, it’s okay, Hooker. It makes it easier for me to take advantage of him later.”
“Oh, you mean there is a level easier than slut?”
“Hooker!” Stella and Willie both growled a warning at the same time.
Hooker dug into his pants and pulled out a dollar. He handed it to Hank. “For the jar, I’ll probably say something else tonight...” Hooker felt Maddie’s slender hand patting his thigh in consolation.
Candy hid her mouth behind her napkin and giggled. She leaned over and confided in Stella. “It’s too bad Dolly had to go to work.”
Stella roared with laughter. “Oh, honey, when my sister and I light into Hooker, it is no laughing matter. I keep him straight, but with Dolly, the only thing he can do wrong is go nuzzle and kiss her and her girls’ fat necks.” She pushed her hand on the arm of the now laughing Candy. “Where he started that, I’ll never know. But lord, do us fat-necked women...” she glanced over at Hooker, “think it’s disgusting!” Then she leaned into Candy and murmured. “We love it.”
Hank had gotten out his chef’s torch and seared the canned peaches on top of the creamy rum vanilla ice cream he and Stella had churned that afternoon. There were just traces of white left in the dishes. The conversations had settled down as the moonshine had mellowed out the carnival of meeting someone new and important in their family.
Stella patted Candy on the arm and spoke quietly. “Bring your glass. I want to show you something even Hooker hasn’t seen yet.” The men were talking about some logistics of getting something done by the light of the moon. Candy wasn’t really following, and so Stella was providing an out.
Stella calmed the look from Hooker with a mention she was just going to show Candy the luminaires and the cactus that was blooming these past three nights. The two women followed quietly by Maddie, walked out the front door. They strolled past and admired the candles and bags, but Stella kept them walking down and around the driveway leading to the large parking area below, as well as the three-car garage.
Two of the garage doors were open, and the light spilled out onto the two pickup trucks parked out in the large parking area next to a couple of very large tents with mosquito netting sides. The trucks were still full of supplies to be off-loaded in the morning.
“We have one more tent to put up. It will be out along there where the crew will prep the food and do any parboiling or blanching. Over the next month, we will generate about three dump-truck loads of peelings and skins. The pits and seeds will all be dried and crushed, but there will only be a few drums of those. All of it will be composted down the hill, and later put into any garden needing or wanting it.”
“Hooker told me you did a lot of canning, but I just didn’t believe him.”
“We are the second-largest canning operation in the city. Metro canning is the biggest, of course, but they do it all year. They also will do about five tons of commercial style canning for us that we can’t do.” She pointed out toward where the hill came down to the large parking lot. “Later we’re going to build a large barn out there. It will house the entire operation, including an outdoor kitchen running the full length of the barn and overlooking the valley.”
She took her hand. “Here, come in here. I’ll show you where we store a lot of this food.” Maddie smiled warmly. They wound into the garage and around a beige Dodge Dart convertible with red leather interior.
Candy looked at the car. “What a cute car.” She looked at Stella. “Is this your car?”
Stella patted the trunk of the yellow Cadillac. “This is my Buttercup. That one is for my daughter.”
“Convertibles are nice with this kind of weather. It was nice riding down here in the big car of Willie’s. I’d like to have a convertible someday.”
Stella smiled back at Maddie and opened one side of the double doors to the storage room. She turned on the light in the almost empty room. Their movements echoed in the large room. “By Halloween, this will be stuffed full all the way to the ceiling with boxes of canned food.”
“Wow.”
“Yeah, wow. There are five storage areas in San Jose. The wow part is it only lasts about one year. And then we do it all over again.”
“And this is all for families of police in need?”
“All of the law enforcement—fire departments, tow-drivers, city and county workers, and the list goes on. We really don’t make people in need fit any certain criteria. Goodness knows—people in need are people in need.”
Stella looked at the young woman. She walked her into a big hug. “Oh, honey, don’t start crying. Not yet, at least.”
She turned off the light and pulled Candy back out into the garage. “I want you to see this. I need your choice on something.”
As she dragged her around the cars and across the garage, she pointed up the stairs. “We’ve had the door locked for a week or so, in order to keep Hooker out, but he’s been busy lately. The door is a secret door in the pantry. I’ll show you how to open it from the other side later.”
She opened the door to the apartment and turned on the lights. Maddie let out a little wow.
“Stella, they have been really moving right along on this.”
“Well, all the plumbing was in, as was all the wiring. It was just the dividing walls that needed to be put in and wired. But yes, they have really moved it right along. And Hooker never suspected a thing. Poor dear has been exhausted lately.”
Candy turned around in the almost finished apartment. “This is going to be where Hooker lives?”
“Not on your life,” Stella growled. “He will only be allowed down here if you invite him.”
Candy was still looking in the two bedrooms and the large bathroom. She came out of the small hall and looked at where the cabinets were standing to be installed for the small kitchenette. “Do the...”
She turned and frowned. “Why would I invite Hooker down here?”
Maddie quietly smiled, and Stella deadpanned as she faced Candy before stating, “Probably, because it’s your new apartment, if you want it while you go to nursing school, that is. As for rent, we can talk after you have a couple of years under your uniform as a nurse.”
“But....” She started to tear up.
Stella stood her ground. “Stop. You can’t cry yet. Do you want the apartment? Do you want to live here? And, if so, we need to paint—so what color?”
“I like the soft yellow of butter...”
“Then Nebraska home churned butter it is.”
Candy nodded numbly as she wiped at her eyes. “Now can I cry?”
Maddie calmly stepped in. Her hands were still clasped together at her legs. “No.”
Candy looked with confusion at Maddie who had been very quiet all evening long. Candy knew she was a librarian and a friend of Willie’s, but beyond that, she was a mystery.
“If you are going to live here, then you are part of the family.” She reached out her hand, dangling a pair of keys. “Here are the keys to your home... and your car.”
“But I don’t have a car.”
“Yes, you do. It’s kind of a hand-me-down, but it will always run great. Not as fast as it once was but plenty fast for a student. It’s parked right outside in your garage slot. We all call it the Granny car.”
The three women came back up through the pantry after they all finished crying. They continued down the ‘guest hall’ that was Hooker’s (and now Squirt’s) domain. Maddie broke off and used Hooker’s bathroom to wash her face. The other two continued to Squirt’s room.
Candy turned around in the room again. “You did all of this for Johnny... for what reason?”
Stella gave her the rolled head stupid zombie act—the inside family joke for all dumb questions. “Like I needed a reason in my own home?” She slurred her answer as she thought a zombie would.
Candy giggled. She hadn’t felt this good in a long time. “No, seriously. You didn’t even know my brother, and you went out and bought him jeans...” She started opening drawers. “Underwear, socks ... wait... underwear? When did he start wearing underwear?” She looked at Stella.
Stella shrugged. “He can go commando for all I care. If he needs a dress, I’ll go raid Uncle Willie’s closet if it’s what the kid wants. I don’t care. He’s now one of my brood, and I get to do what I want for them.” She took hold of Candy’s shoulders. “Honey, he saved my Hooker’s bacon when it counted most. The kid is a saint.” She hugged the girl inside of Candy. “Maybe you don’t see it, but the kid is every bit as good as Hooker was at that age. He just needed to have someone tell him that.” She pushed back from Candy and looked her in the eyes. “So do you.”
Candy fell forward for another hug. “You just have to give us some time to get used to this.”
Stella patted her on the back. “You have all the time you need. Just hurry up about it. I’m liking the idea of getting a daughter out of the deal.”
They smiled as Candy took one last look around her brother’s room, and then turned out the light. “And mum is the word. Hooker has no idea the apartment is almost ready... or about the car.”
“I have one question.” Candy and Stella stood in the darkened doorway.
“What, honey?”
Candy leaned into her. “How did you know what size jeans he wore?”
Stella let out a roar of a laugh and hung on to Candy. There was so much to teach a daughter.
Hank dragged Willie outdoors when Don and another driver showed up to drop off the new five-ton tow truck for Hooker. He went over the new features on the towing bed, and where everything was. Hooker didn’t even think anything was different when Willie and Maddie were chauffeured off by Hank in the DeSoto Hooker had arrived in.
Finally, late—the lights were off. The hacienda settled, and quiet prevailed. Several minutes later, the ghostly figure crept down the short hallway in the moonlight. It slipped into the door, found its bearings, and picked up the edge of the blankets and sheets. The lithe body slid in and found the larger spoon with a small muffled giggle. Anything else in the world could wait.