Why is it that when the brain goes to shock, the knees go to mush? The floor seemed to sway beneath me.
“When?” I whispered after what felt like a long time.
He stared, exhausted, into space. “Last night.”
“Jesus, Lonnie, I’m incredibly sorry.”
His gaze remained fixed midair on something I couldn’t see.
“It started a week ago,” he said, his voice a low, shocked monotone. “She got weak all of a sudden, couldn’t hold her water or her bowels anymore. I couldn’t get her to eat. I don’t think she was hurting. It was like the fire went out of her.”
Then he was silent for a few moments.
“I took her to the vet,” he continued. “Doc said she’d had a series of small strokes, said she needed to be put to sleep. Put to sleep. I hate that. He meant sign the papers so he could kill her.”
“Lonnie, don’t,” I said. “This isn’t—”
“I couldn’t let him do that, Harry. Couldn’t let him put my girl down like that.”
His head moved up slowly and his eyes met mine. “She was all I had, man.”
“You have friends,” I said. “You got me. Why didn’t you call?”
He shook his head and made a kind of spewing noise. “Shit, Harry, last time I saw you, you looked like an extra out of Night of the Living Dead. Besides, what were you going to do? She was dying. Nobody could change that.”
All the same, I felt like pond scum for not being there for him, for Shadow.
I realized I’d been standing in one position so long, my legs were going to sleep and my back was starting to hurt. I shifted my weight, took a step over to him, then straightened an overturned folding chair and sat down.
“You didn’t have to go through it by yourself,” I said. “I’da come, man.”
He put his elbows on his knees and rested his head in his hands, face toward the floor, hands rubbing his scalp.
“I’m sorry. I’m just so damn tired. Haven’t slept in days. She never seemed like she was hurting, never whimpered, complained, any of that. I sat up with her, held her until she—”
“Where is she now?” I said.
“I buried her out back this morning, just as the sun was coming up.” He stopped, looked around at the wreckage of the trailer.
“Guess I went kind of ape shit,” he muttered.
I thought for a moment of the times I’d seen her prowling the junkyard, protecting the fenced boundaries like a military outpost. That space was her life, her own private queendom. Somehow it seemed right that he’d buried her there. This sharp pain shot through my gut when I realized I wish I’d had the chance to say goodbye to her.
“Man, this ain’t gonna help much,” I finally said, after forcing myself to focus on anything but that pain. “But she died at home, peacefully, in the arms of somebody who cared for her and loved her, and she’s buried in a place she loved. If you gotta go, that ain’t a bad way to do it.”
He straightened and raised his head again. I sensed somehow that he hadn’t really thought of it that way.
“So what are you doing here, anyway? Haven’t seen you in months.”
I shrugged. “It’s been too long. I’m sorry, especially given the circumstances.”
“You didn’t answer my question.”
I felt shitty enough to begin with without telling him I had tracked him down because I needed work. But it was the straight truth and there was no point in trying to dodge it.
“Things have gotten kind of rough lately on the biz front,” I said. “Thought maybe—”
“Thought maybe you’d pick up a few bucks with ol’ Lonnie again.” His voice trailed off and he shook his head, disgusted. “Jesus, Harry. You disappear for months and then you pop up out of nowhere.”
I stood up. I didn’t feel like having this discussion right now. “Listen, it’s a bad time. Why don’t I take off? You give me a call when you feel like getting together, okay?”
I stepped over toward him, stuck out my hand. He watched me, stone-faced, and made no move. I pulled my hand back, stuck it in my pocket.
“You need anything, you give me a call,” I said. “I’ll see you around, okay?”
I waited a few moments, and when he said nothing I turned and went to the door. As my hand hit the doorknob, he spoke.
“I’m supposed to meet this guy around six,” Lonnie said, his voice still that low, numb monotone. “Offered me two bills to cover his ass while he nails a bond jumper.”
I turned back to him. He stood up, thumbs in the side pockets of his jeans.
“You want to come along,” he said, “we’ll split fifty-fifty.”
I smiled at him weakly and nodded my head. We didn’t go into it any further, but I knew he’d forgiven me.
“She was good people, Lonnie,” I said. “I’m going to miss her.”
Lonnie squealed the old F-150 through the curve onto the Ellington Parkway entrance ramp. I was on the front seat beside him, a pair of handcuffs folded into my back pocket, a slapjack slipped into my inside coat pocket, a can of pepper spray in my front pants pocket, and a stinger disguised as a beeper on a hook on my belt. I’ve got a carry permit, but I don’t like guns; like them even less now than I used to.
Lonnie had a different take on the evening. He wore a nine millimeter in a nylon-and-Velcro shoulder holster underneath his surplus fatigue jacket and a tiny Airweight .38 in an ankle holster. This was in addition to the slapjack, pepper spray, handcuffs, Taser, and a variety of other toys he carried.
I’d not done a lot of bounty hunting with Lonnie, just enough to know I didn’t like it. Under case law dating back to the nineteenth century—Taylor v. Taynter, I believe—when a bail bondsman posts bond for you, you essentially become his property. You post bond for a guy and he jumps bail, you can do anything to get him back. You don’t need a search warrant to go into his house after him. You don’t need an arrest warrant. You don’t have to Mirandize him. None of this due process shit; you find him, he’s yours. You can go anywhere, any jurisdiction, cross any state, county, or city border. Doesn’t matter; if you’ve got a certified copy of the bond and a warrant for “Failure to Appear,” he’s the game and you’re the hunter. Anything goes.
This also means the jumper hasn’t got a lot to lose. Sometimes we’d go after guys who realized what they were up against and were so tired of running, they were almost relieved to be going back to jail. Once or twice, though, it’d been like cornering a rabid dog. I hated bounty hunting the same way street cops hate domestic calls. You just don’t know what you’ll run into.
“So where we going?” I asked over the roar of the Ford as Lonnie hit eighty on the parkway.
“Hickory Hollow area,” he said. “Some Mexican restaurant.” “Why a Mexican restaurant?”
Lonnie turned to me, one hand lightly on the wheel. He’d shaved, showered, changed into some clean clothes while I straightened up what I could of the trailer. Other than the circles under his bloodshot eyes, he looked almost normal.
“Jumper’s a Mexican, an illegal up here working construction. Got popped Saturday night for aggravated assault, D and D, and somehow the system got all screwed up and he managed to find a bondsman before anybody realized he didn’t have a green card.”
“And of course the motherthumper rabbited as soon as he hit the sidewalk.”
“Wouldn’t you?” Lonnie asked.
The traffic at the cityside end of the Ellington Parkway thickened and slowed as we approached I-65. Lonnie maneuvered around a fender bender, cut in front of a Roadway semi, went partway up on the shoulder, and managed to squeeze around the bottleneck. Then we crossed the river and headed out toward the I-24 split.
We were on our way to the southeast quadrant of the city, which was the fastest-growing part of a town that was already in the biggest population boom in anyone’s memory. The city’s growth was straining the infrastructure something fierce. Property values were skyrocketing, mainly from people moving in from the northeast and L.A. who were delighted to find that the money they spent in a one-bedroom efficiency in Manhattan would pay the mortgage here on a four-bedroom house on an acre lot in the burbs. The natives were starting to sport bumper stickers with sentiments like WELCOME TO NASHVILLE! NOW Y’ALL GO HOME.
“I still don’t get it,” I said. “Why’s the guy going to be in a Mexican restaurant? Isn’t that a little visible?”
Lonnie grinned. “Man’s gotta eat, ain’t he?”
“Smartass.” I propped my feet up on the dashboard and stared out the window at the endless line of cars all around us.
“The restaurant’s in a tacky motel just off the interstate. Lot of immigrant construction workers rent by the week, then move on to the next job site.”
“So he’s hiding out with the brothers.”
“Yeah, only thing is, Jerry speaks Spanish, knew where to ask and how to ask. Tracked the jumper down a couple days ago. Jerry was a Ranger, spent a lot of time down in Central America.”
“Jerry’s the bondsman?”
“No,” Lonnie said, grinning. “Jerry’s the bounty hunter. You never met him?”
I shook my head.
“He’s a trip. A real wild man. Jerry the Drill.”
Lonnie swerved to avoid an Oldsmobile that had inexplicably stopped in the middle of the freeway. Tires squealed, the engine whined as he downshifted. My heart raced as we skidded through a herd of stampeding metal. I grabbed the door handle in a death grip as we veered back across the freeway to the far left and slipped seamlessly into the fast lane, the engine screaming as Lonnie shifted back up to ninety.
I cleared my throat, tried to breathe. “Jerry the Drill, huh?”
We were silent the rest of the way. I wondered what life without Shadow would be like for Lonnie. Despite my protestations, he really didn’t have anyone else. On the other hand, Lonnie was already beginning to seem like his old self. I’m not sure the same could be said of me.
Twenty minutes later, we turned off the freeway onto Bell Road and into an area of strip malls, car dealerships, a Target, and a couple of motels, one of which advertised in glowing pink neon: HOT TUB AND FRIG IN EVERY ROOM.
Lonnie pointed, laughed. “Hey, my kind of place.”
“Think they meant fridge?” I asked.
To our right, up a slight hill, an older multistoried motel was painted a fading pink over fake stucco. Blinking Christmas tree lights wound around the windows and along the gutters. The sign above the door, in hand-painted letters several feet high, read CASA FAJITA.
“Party time,” Lonnie said, his voice stronger now. I could feel the oncoming adrenaline surge myself.
Up the hill in a crowded parking lot, a tall guy in a black leather sportcoat leaned against the hood of a vintage Cadillac, a huge early Seventies land yacht. You don’t park a car like that; you dock it, and I figured Jerry the Drill must be doing pretty well to afford to put gas in it.
Lonnie backed the truck into a spot opposite the Cadillac, so they faced each other nose-to-nose across the asphalt. We climbed down out of the Ford and crossed the blacktop.
“Yo’ dude,” Lonnie called.
“Yo’ ya’self, amigo,” the guy in the coat said. He was tall, maybe six-five, about my age, slight roll around the belt line. His arms were crossed and he wore aviator bifocals. Altogether, he looked like a relatively well-off middle-aged guy who’d discovered he had a deep and abiding affection for BarcaLoungers and multiple ESPN channels. He was not the kind of guy I’d look at and think bounty hunter.
We stopped in front of the Caddy. “Harry James Denton,” Lonnie said, “meet Jerry the Drill.”
I offered my hand. “Glad to meet you, Mr. Drill.”
Jerry the Drill swung his head back and howled with laughter. His voice boomed from deep down within, a healthy uninhibited laugh. He took my hand and pumped it solidly.
“Keck,” he said. “Jerry Keck. That Jerry the Drill stuff is just Lonnie’s idea of a joke.”
“Yeah, he’s a funny guy,” I said.
“So, Harry, how long you known this crazy man?”
I glanced over at Lonnie. “Forever. Taught me everything I know, which is a really sad commentary when you think about it.”
“So where’s the skip?” Lonnie asked, looking up the flight of chipped concrete steps to the Casa Fajita entrance.
“Sheba’s watching him,” Jerry said. “Being this is Friday and payday, he and his buddies are in the bar swilling down Tecates.”
“Sheba?” I asked.
“Yeah, who’s Sheba?” Lonnie echoed.
“My assistant. Every once in a while she likes to join in the fun.”
“So what’s the drill, so to speak?” Lonnie asked.
“His name’s Hector Rodriguez, and he’ll pretend he doesn’t speak any English, but truth is, his inglés is not bad. He’s a big guy, ’bout my size plus fifty pounds or so, all muscle. Looks like he’s got some Indian in him or something. He’s supposed to be real mean, too.”
“What’d he get nailed for?” I asked.
“Aggravated assault charge was for beating a guy half to death over a card-game dispute. Broke a bottle of Crown Royal over the guy’s head. Picked up a D and D and a resisting arrest when the cops came.”
“Jesus,” Lonnie said.
“The guy he slammed’ll be okay, I heard, except he can’t make a fist and drools a lot.”
“So how we going to do this?” I asked.
“We’ll go into the bar, get a table, order a round, scope out the situation. Basically, I’ll take the guy. You step in if his buddies try to pile on. I don’t think that’s going to happen though.”
“Wish I was so sure,” Lonnie said, but the tone of his voice was flip rather than anxious.
“One other thing,” Jerry said. “You guys carrying?”
“Hell, yeah,” Lonnie said.
“Leave ’em in the truck. It’s against the law to carry anywhere alcohol is served and I’m not going to mess with that.”
“You’re crazy,” Lonnie said, pointing toward the door. “You think that’s going to stop them from carrying?”
“I’m not going to get in a situation where we have a gunfight in a crowded restaurant. Guy wants to jump bail that bad, let him. We’ll figure another way to nail his ass.”
Lonnie shrugged. “Your call, babe. Just don’t look for a big red S on my chest.”
Jerry the Drill looked at me. “You?”
I shook my head, smiled. “I don’t like guns. They scare me.”
“Good for you, brother. You’ll live to be a very old man with that attitude.”
We started up the stairs as Lonnie slammed and locked the door of the truck.
“You like frozen margaritas?” Jerry asked. “This place is the best. Frozen margs to die for.”
“Works for me,” I said. “Hey, I got to ask. Where’d Jerry the Drill come from?”
He laughed. “I’ve got my license, but I’m not really a private detective. And I’m sure not a bounty hunter by trade.”
“Yeah, so what do you do?”
He held the glass door to Casa Fajita open for me. I stepped through into the noise and the aroma of frying Mexican food.
“I’m a dentist,” he said.