Situated due east of San Leandro, Castro Valley is the first of several bedroom communities strung along the 580 Tri-Valley Corridor. Our high schools had a rivalry. In Luke’s final game before he dropped out, he got tossed for clotheslining their point guard.
To everyone else in attendance it must have seemed like he’d picked a strange moment to lash out. We were up by double digits with two minutes left on the clock. To me—sitting on the bench, watching it happen—the gesture made a perverse kind of sense. I wouldn’t have done it. But it resonated at the center of my id. He and I had learned to play against each other, battering like bighorn sheep, our blood staining the driveway concrete. There were no fouls called. Fouls were for pussies. Get hit? Hit back. Hit first. Don’t wait. Suckers waited.
Then came middle school, Saturdays at the park, developing a fluent two-man game, running rings around the competition; misdirecting, talking trash, calling out schemes in a shorthand akin to the language of twins. Becky or bubble referred to Sir Mix-A-Lot’s “Baby Got Back” and meant: Set a back screen. We had lyrics for a pick-and-roll, a pick-and-pop, a give-and-go, V-cut, switch. The code was elaborate and protean. You had to be inside our heads. And then, older and taller, riding the bus to Mosswood, the most storied game in Northern California. For two kids playing against grown men, the atmosphere was Darwinian.
Hit first. Hit hard.
So while I considered it dumb of Luke to swing his arm, and felt smug in the belief that I had greater self-control, I also appreciated the act’s internal logic. It was an act of self-preservation, programmed by years of battling for dominance and status; the act of a competitor.
It’s not enough to defeat an opponent. You have to degrade him. Tear out his heart.
The competitor in me also understood that Luke’s loss was my gain. The conference board suspended him for three games. Coach gave me the next start. I never gave it back.
Past the main Castro Valley shopping district, suburban tracts dissolved and died out. The earth rose up in welts. Then began five depopulated, mountainous miles.
Take the exit for Eden Canyon Road.
Off-ramp signs pointed left for food and lodging, right for gas.
Turn right.
I came to a deserted intersection.
You have arrived at your destination.
Across the road, chain-link hemmed in a decrepit ranch house. Opposite was an off-brand service station. Everything else was dirt and rocks and weeds.
Why would my brother drive to a remote location in the middle of the night?
To clear his head.
Stopping for gas, bound for someplace yet more remote.
Or he’d done something bad and needed to get rid of a phone.
I rolled into the service station. The lights were off. The pumps were off. There was a shuttered garage and an office with the shades drawn.
I opened the center console. Half its contents reflected the father in me. Diapers, wipes, expired applesauce pouch. The other half belonged to the cop. Gloves, flashlight, Ka-Bar knife. I dug out an old N95, soft from overuse, that had been living in there for probably two or more years. No point tossing it. There would always be another fire.
My phone lit up. Amy Sandek would like FaceTime…
The screen pixelated, grayed, and set tentatively.
“Hey,” Amy said. She squinted. “Are you in your car? Do you want to try me back?”
I switched on the dome light. “It’s okay, I’m not driving.”
“I’ve been calling.”
“Sorry. I lost track of time. Is she asleep yet?”
“I kept her up so you could say good night.”
“Thanks.”
The screen flipped. Charlotte lay on her stomach, scribbling in a Frozen coloring book.
“Hi, lovey,” I said.
“Say hi to Daddy.”
“…hi, Daddy.”
“Hi, lovey. How was your day?”
“…it was fun.”
“What did you do?”
“…lots of things.”
“Honey, please put down the crayon for a second and talk to Daddy.”
Charlotte scooted onto her knees. She was wearing Frozen pjs. A hank of dark hair draped her shoulder. It was my hair, until you got close enough to see the fine golden filaments woven throughout. A gift from her mother. In sunlight they imparted a sheen, less color than light itself, so that my daughter seemed to glow from within.
I said, “What was the most fun part?”
“We went to the beach and there was a man who was naked.”
“No way. Really?”
“Really,” Amy said.
“Like, full frontal?”
“He was playing the bongos,” Amy said.
“I saw his penis,” Charlotte said. “What’s ‘frontal’?”
“It means his penis,” Amy said.
“What the heck kind of beach did you go to?” I asked.
“Tennis Beach,” Charlotte said.
“Never heard of it.”
“Really it’s Venice Beach but cousin Sarah called it Tennis Beach.”
“You should have called it Pennis Beach.”
“What’s that?”
Amy said, “We had pizza for dinner again.”
“Lucky girls,” I said. “Hey, lovey, I heard you like anchovies.”
“No I don’t. Daddy, baby Liam had a poop-mergency.”
“He did, huh? Did you call the poop police?”
“It got on cousin Sarah’s hands.”
“Yuck.”
“Her shirt and pants, too,” Amy said. “It was epic.”
“Daddy, I went potty at the beach.”
“That sounds like fun.”
“I went in the green porkapotty.”
“You did? That’s awesome. Great job. How was that experience for Mommy?”
Amy didn’t answer.
“I’m proud of you, lovey. Did you get cotton candy?”
“No, I got ice cream.”
“That was for dessert,” Amy said. “You got cotton candy at the beach, remember?”
“Lovey, please make sure Mommy brushes your teeth really well.”
“I will.”
“Do you know how much I love you?”
“Yes.”
“How much?”
“So much.”
“More.”
“So so much.”
“Even more.”
“So so so so so so so so much.”
“Close enough. Good night, lovey.”
“Good night, Daddy.”
The screen flipped again. Amy said, “I’m sure you are, but: Are you fixed for food?”
I pressed on my stomach, as though to gauge its contents. I hadn’t eaten since breakfast and I was still wearing my VISITOR sticker. “All set.”
“Jerky again?”
“Dinner of champions.”
She smiled. “Call me before you go to bed.”
“Will do. Love you.”
“You, too.”
The screen went black.
I put on the mask.
My knock at the gas station’s office door went unanswered. The garage had a rolling steel shutter. I pounded on it a few times. Sharp reports echoed down the road.
The station backed up to a scrubby rise screaming with katydids. Along one side were a dumpster and the restroom door, locked with a mechanical keypad. A headless broomstick leaned against the wall. I took it and walked around the station, poking through trash receptacles. Candy wrappers, Mountain Dew bottles, losing lottery tickets.
No phone.
I heaved open the dumpster with a boom. Flies billowed out. I ran the flashlight beam over bags and rags and cans. A phone might work its way down through the cracks. One by one I began removing items from the dumpster and setting them on the ground.
Soon my arms and shirt were smeared in ripe black grime, and I was feeling stupid. The fact that Luke’s phone had last pinged in the area didn’t mean it was still here. He just as well could have chucked it out the window from the road or shut it off while pumping gas. I couldn’t get much dirtier, though, and I was almost finished. I bent to grab another bag.
“Can I help you?”
Twenty yards away a man stood pointing a rifle at me. He was in his late fifties, medium height, with thin wrists and thin calves and a long pleated neck. All middle, his mass concentrated powerfully from shoulders to hips. A shaggy gray comb-over levitated in the wind. The skin of his forearms shone dark with grease. He wore a brown bathrobe, greasy smashed moccasins, and flannel pajama pants. Reading glasses hung on a chain around his neck.
I showed my hands. “Alameda County Sheriff.”
“The hell you say.”
“My badge is in my pocket.”
He said nothing.
“Do you want to see it?”
“I want to know why you’re in my trash.”
I wondered how he could have gotten here so fast. I hadn’t heard him coming, hadn’t heard a car. The station didn’t have security cameras and moreover there was no electricity. Then I spied the ranch house across the road, and I remembered pounding on the office door and the garage, and the crash of the dumpster lid, sounds that carried on a quiet, untrafficked night.
“I’m looking for someone,” I said.
“In my trash?”
“Not my intention to disturb you. I knocked.”
“We’re closed. Take your mask off…Now get out your badge and throw it over here.”
I did.
“You aren’t dressed like a cop.”
“I’m off duty.”
“Who’re you looking for in my trash?”
“My brother. This is the last known location of his phone.”
“Here?”
“Near here. Yesterday, about midnight. You remember if anyone came by?”
“We were closed then, too.” He tossed me the badge. “No power, we can’t dispense.”
“I was hoping the phone might still be around somewhere. Do you mind if I look?”
“I mind you making a mess.”
“I’ll put everything back. Promise.”
He said nothing.
“He hasn’t come home,” I said. “He has a history of drug use and we’re worried sick.”
He sniffed. “I’m going to stand right here.”
“Okay.”
“I was in the Marine Corps. You get it in your head to try anything funny I’m not going to miss.”
“I believe you.”
Removing the deepest items from the dumpster required that I lean over so far my feet left the ground. The floor and interior walls were unspeakably foul.
No phone.
I came up for air. “Has there been a collection since Sunday?”
“No. You going to clean up or what?”
I refilled the dumpster and shut the lid. “The bathroom? Has it been cleaned out?”
“I told you, we’ve been closed ever since they shut the lights off.”
Then he said, “First you said yesterday, then you said Sunday.”
“Twelve oh four a.m. Monday. What most people call Sunday night.”
He sniffed again. “One second.”
From his bathrobe pocket he took a cellphone. He dialed and put it to his ear.
“I need you to cross the street. Yes, now. Get some clothes on, then.”
He put the phone away. “First night I had my son wait up. In case anyone saw this blackout and got clever and decided to rip the place off. You can ask him.”
“I appreciate it. I’m Clay, by the way.”
“I know, I saw your badge. Tom.”
“I appreciate it, Tom.”
He nodded.
“What did you do in the Marine Corps?” I asked.
A one-sided smile. “Motor pool.”
A young man shuffled up from the direction of the ranch house. Late teens to early twenties, medium height, robust through the torso like his maker. The clothes he’d gotten on were black mesh shorts, a San Jose Sharks jersey, and black Adidas slides. Meaty shoulders sagged with fatigue.
Tom said, “Tommy, this gentleman is looking for his brother.”
Tommy regarded me as though I had asked him to recite the Iliad in the original.
I said, “He might’ve come through Sunday night, Monday morning, around midnight. You were here?”
“All freakin night,” Tommy mumbled.
“People take advantage,” Tom said.
“I don’t see you doing it.”
“Mind your tone.”
“Did you see anyone, Tommy?” I asked.
“A few people stopped wanting gas.”
“Did you talk to any of them?”
“I told them, sorry, no gas.”
“Do you remember what they looked like?”
“Not really.”
“Hang on, I can show you a picture.”
I went through hundreds of photos of Charlotte to find one of my brother: a group shot, Edison family brunch. The very first, if memory served. Fresh-squeezed OJ and mini-muffins. Luke was corkscrewed, trying to fold himself into the frame. A tall-guy problem. It made for a poor likeness. His nostrils looked big as Oreos and his face was foreshortened.
I zoomed in on him and held the phone out to Tommy.
“Maybe. I don’t know.”
“Let me find a better one,” I said, scrolling. “Try this: See if you can estimate how many people stopped that night. Are we talking two? Five? Ten?”
Tommy mugged helplessly.
“You heard the man,” Tom said.
“I don’t know,” Tommy said.
“What about their cars?” I asked. “That might help you remember who was driving them.”
He got a faraway look and his lips started quivering, as if he were about to channel the dead. “I think there was a, like a Civic, or something like that.”
“Okay. Good. Now see if you can remember the driver.”
“…a guy. Not the guy from the picture.”
“You’re sure about that.”
“Yeah, this guy was Asian.”
“Good. See? You remember more than you think.”
Tommy glanced happily at his father, who remained stoic.
“What’s the next car you remember?” I asked.
“…a sedan. A nice one. A BMW. It was a guy and a woman. The guy was like, ‘Turn on the pump,’ and I said I couldn’t. He sorta lost his shit. ‘What’s wrong with you, you’re supposed to be a gas station, how can a gas station have no gas.’ ”
“Can you describe his appearance? Was he white, Black, Asian?”
“White.”
“Tall? Short?”
“Maybe more tall than short.”
“How tall? Like me?”
“I don’t know.”
“How old was he? Compared with you, me, or your dad.”
“You’re closest, I guess.”
“So around forty.”
“I guess.”
“Did he look like me?”
“I just wanted him to leave,” Tommy said.
“I know it’s hard. Concentrate and try to see him. Does anything about him stick out?”
“Like what?”
“Anything. Facial hair. Was he wearing something distinctive, or maybe he had a scar or tattoo. His clothes were messed up, or had blood on them, like he’d been in a fight.”
“Nothing like that.”
“What about the woman? Can you describe her?”
“She stayed in the car. I didn’t see her too good. I mean, it was dark, all I had was the flashlight. I didn’t want to, like, shine it in her face.”
“Do you remember what time it was when they pulled up?”
“I mean, I was tired.”
“Who was driving, him or her?”
“She was, I think.”
Luke was forty-one. The right age for a midlife crisis.
How stressful had things gotten between him and Andrea?
Stressful enough that he couldn’t handle it with a cup of chamomile and valerian root tea?
Enough to run off with another woman?
For most guys, a midlife crisis meant buying a car, not selling one.
Maybe he needed quick cash for his new adventure.
Dealing the Camaro to Vandervelde.
Texting his sidepiece. Pick me up bae
She was driving the BMW. Her car.
Baby I’m sorry
Did it make sense for him to apologize to his wife in advance?
Maybe the BMW had belonged to Rory Vandervelde. Straight trade for the Camaro.
“You said it was a nice BMW,” I asked. “Do you remember the model?”
“Nuh. It was black, or—actually, gray, maybe. I mean, it’s a nice car.”
Tom made an impatient noise, at his son or at me or both of us.
As we talked I’d been hunting for a clearer photo of Luke. I stopped at one taken the night he and I went to CrossFit. A moment of fragile camaraderie, both of us bedraggled, me putting on an exaggerated frown and giving thumbs-down, Luke doing the opposite.
I showed it to Tommy. “Is that him?”
He stared for a ten-count. “There was a guy with a beard sort of like that.”
“The guy in the BMW?”
“No, a different guy. He was driving a truck.”
“The guy from this photo was driving a truck?”
“No, I don’t…I don’t think it’s the same guy. I mean, maybe. But—like, the beard, it reminded me.”
“You’re sure it’s not the same guy in the photo?”
“This guy was kinda younger.”
“How much younger?”
Tommy thought. “More like me.”
Luke had lived hard and it showed. I doubted anyone would cut twenty years off his age.
“Can you describe him? Aside from the beard.”
“He was white.”
“What about him, did he look anything like me?”
“You don’t have a beard.”
“The shape of his face,” I said. “Take your time.”
“I mean, he was pretty big.”
“Big as in tall, or big as in big?”
“Both, I guess.”
“Do you remember what he was wearing?”
“I don’t know, man. He was just some guy.”
“What about the truck? Did you get a make and model?”
“I think it was…white? Okay. Okay. It had one of those things on the bed…” Tommy chopped his hand to describe a horizontal plane. “Like a top.”
“A tonneau cover,” Tom said.
“That’s great,” I said. “What else?”
“I heard it pull up,” Tommy said. “I went out to say, sorry, no gas. He said he needed to use the bathroom.”
“Did you let him?”
“Yeah. I didn’t want him to, like, piss on the ground. I gave him the code.”
I looked to Tom, who went over to the restroom door and keyed in the code for me.
I stepped inside. Fluorescent tubes on a motion sensor snapped on, filling the confines with abrasive blue light. It was an off-brand gas station restroom. A little cleaner than average. Eight by eight, nubby beige plastic wainscoting; floor tiles with a drain inset and a toilet with a gouged seat. There was a cloudy stainless-steel mirror and a pedestal sink with a crack in the base and an unfilled paper towel dispenser and a stainless-steel trash bin screwed to the wall, liner knotted at one corner to prevent slippage.
I grasped the knot and lifted the bin liner free. In the bad blue light it turned like some deformed afterbirth, strata of garbage visible through the filmy plastic, a crumpled cigarette pack, toilet paper wads, a tampon. A heavier item would fall straight through and settle at the bottom in a bulge. That was what had happened. At the bottom of the bag was a gun.