“Nice shot.” Bill Jerome’s face revealed no joy.
Shaw nodded in acknowledgment and walked around to the far side of the table, where the six ball rested against the side rail, not quite halfway between the end and side pockets. He gestured to the side pocket with the tip of his cue. “Three cushions.” The room stilled as the geezers in the high-backed observer chairs leaned forward to watch. A young couple chatting away at the end of the bar let their conversation trail off into the silence. Ben Shaw shook his graying head in wonderment at the lack of common pool room etiquette.
“Put on a good show, don’t they?” Jack Collins said sotto voce. Frank nodded ever so slightly.
Shaw leaned his cue against the wall, lifted himself into an observer’s chair, and began packing his pipe.
Bill Jerome’s voice cut through the quiet. “You givin’ up, Ben?”
Shaw shook his head. “Nope, just waiting till the Blarney Stone over there finishes up.” He looked up from his pipe packing. “I mean, we wouldn’t want to interrupt a meaningful exchange of ideas for something so trivial as a life-and-death snooker match.” He glared over at Collins, who peeled back a toothy grin.
“Well, go ahead now, Ben. All eyes are on you.”
Shaw lit the pipe with a wooden match and puffed billowing clouds of smoke into the still air, then tamped down the ash. “Good, glad you’re paying attention. Your game needs a bit of work.” He retrieved his cue and chalked the tip, holding the blue chalk in his left hand and rolling the base of the cue against his foot with the other.
He tapped off the excess against the edge of the leather pocket and bent low over the cue, his beard tickling the shaft as he slid it back and forth, smoothing the stroke. He struck the cue ball medium hard. The six came away from the side rail into the end rail at a shallow angle and then into the far side rail at a forty-degree angle and away, rolled across the felt, and dropped neatly into the side pocket.
Shaw resumed his seat, trying to look matter-of-fact as he puffed on his pipe, his eyes fairly beaming with pleasure. “Heh, heh, heh.” He grinned and lifted his empty glass toward Bill Jerome. “Heh, heh, heh.”
Jerome shambled over to the bar. “Two Pacificos.”
“Were you guys just playing for beers?” The young man’s voice was incredulous.
Jerome paused to look at the couple, his dark eyes and thin mouth unsmiling. “That’s right. We’re too good to play for money.” The geezers wheezed and guffawed. Then Jerome broke into a small smile. “Might as well bring a couple beers for these two, as well. But you guys”—he gestured to the wall of geezers—“can just forget it.”
“Yeah, they do put on quite a show.” Watching the game at the Joshua Tree Athletic Club had become one of Frank’s favorite pastimes. These old reprobates managed to squeeze a lot of pleasure out of not very much. It was a gift, the way they amused one another. He hoped Collins could keep them out of mischief for a while, although he wondered about Collins. He glanced around the room. The place was full of local folks, if eight or nine people besides the Grumpy Wrench Gang constituted “full.” It was pretty good for a Wednesday afternoon in Red Mountain. The boys had their audience, and he was among ’em. Good beer, good company. He glanced above the bar and failed to make eye contact with the jackalope. Maybe Collins had taken it down as a matter of caution.
“Say, Jack, where’s the horned beast?” Frank pointed above the bar, where the jackalope had surveyed the goings-on.
“Oh, that. Well, Frank, m’lad, I sold him, but not to worry, there’s another on its way.”
“Is that right? Who’d you sell him to, Jack?”
“Just a fellow who thought the jackalope was something rare.” Collins busied himself wiping down the bar.
“Tell me about it.”
“Oh, it’s a long story.”
“I’ll make time for it, Jack. Sounds terribly interesting, even enlightening.” Frank leaned forward, placing both elbows on the bar and resting his chin on his hands.
“Well, since the paper in Victorville picked up Linda’s story about the jackalope preserve and whatnot, there’ve been people in here asking about ’em, interested, so to speak. That’s all. She’s quite a writer, my daughter is.”
“That’s all?”
“Are you sure you want to know about all this?” Collins raised his eyebrows, a pained expression on his face.
Frank nodded, his solemn face sharing Collins’s concern. “Go on, Jack, difficult as it might be.”
Collins heaved a sigh. “Now here we are in the Mojave Desert, in the only drinking establishment in Red Mountain, and one of the beasties is hanging above the bar, so folks naturally assumed we were informed, sort of experts, you might say.”
“Yeah, I’d say you were the jackalope experts.”
“There you are.” Collins shrugged. “This fellow wanted to know all about jackalopes, how they came about, breeding habits, that sort of thing. So naturally, Ben and Bill there”—he waved his thick arm in their general direction—“and myself, we filled him and the missus in.”
“I’ll bet you did.”
“There’s a lot of doubters, Frank. People lack the power to believe. We don’t even talk to those folks, just pass the whole thing off as a joke. But every so often, a man of faith comes to pass, and it’s a bond, a brotherhood.” Collins’s voice dropped a register on the brotherhood part.
“So when one of the brothers wants to have the last jackalope buck taken in Jawbone Canyon by the last of the Paiute, I’d be a cruel man to deny him his heart’s desire.”
“How much?”
“A hundred and fifty, and a bargain at the price, if such a thing can be measured by the filth of lucre.” Collins sniffed.
“Where’d you get it?”
“From a catalog. There’s another half dozen on the way.” Collins spread his hands in a gesture of helplessness. “It’s more interesting than a piece of the true cross or a bit of the robe. Think of it like this: If and when they discover it might not be the last of the breed, they have a wonderful conversation piece, a good story, and even a chance to make a bit of profit. So where’s the harm?”
“Guess it’s not such a harebrained scheme.” Frank grinned.
“Oh there you go, having a bit of fun with me.”
“And I appreciate it, too.”
“What’s that?”
“Having the fun.” He looked down at the back of his hands in thought.
“You don’t look all that happy about it, Frank.” Collins waited. “You caught the poacher, with some unlooked-for help”—he nodded his head in the direction of Shaw and Jerome—“but you were the man of the hour.”
“Sorensen almost died.” Frank raised his hand. “I know. No great loss, but I don’t think you’d want it on your conscience.”
Collins’s expression hardened.
“It could have been the old couple I’d rescued from the camper who found him stuck out there.”
“Yeah.” Collins’s large face went bland. “You know that’s not going to happen again, at least not from us.” He waved his hand around the bar. “Hurtin’ people wouldn’t have been good.” He brightened. “But the part about Sorensen being attacked by an Indian was too good to be true. All the boys here been talking about it, the Paiute’s last stand. Now half of ’em claim to have had a run-in with a half-clothed renegade.”
“Eddie’s a Shoshone.” Frank decided not to mention Eddie’s attire at their last meeting.
“And a damn fine one. Like to meet him sometime.”
“Couldn’t afford it, Jack. Eddie likes beer. Having a tavern owner for a friend would be a lifelong commitment.” Frank thought
about Eddie added to the mix of the Grumpy Wrench Gang and shuddered inwardly.
“Well, your poacher’s through.”
“For now, Jack. A fine and community service doesn’t stop assholes like Sorensen. Besides that, he left a man in the desert to die, only I can’t prove it, and nobody wants to hear about it anymore.” He shook his head. “There’ve been too many deaths.” Frank studied the surface of the bar.
Collins rested a stubby hand on Frank’s arm. “It’s been almost five months. I think we’re through with Miller.”
Frank caught Collins’s eyes and held them. “Don’t say it for me, Jack. You think about it, too.”
“It’ll come right, Frank. It won’t be easy for a man who looks like he does to hide forever.”
“He’s a smart son of a bitch, Jack. And evil. He rode around with the bodies of the people he murdered in their motor home for two days.” Frank looked away. “He needs to be dead.” The words came out softly. “Then it’d be over.”
They sat in the silence of darkened thoughts.
Collins emptied his glass and sighed. “It’s the way he wins, you know.”
“What’re you saying?”
“He gets you to be like him, to think murder. It won’t do. If he comes, then it’s another matter. Don’t let him get inside you, Frank. Once upon a time, Ben almost lost himself. It’s in all of us, Adam’s bite of the apple.
“By and large, it’s a good world, and there’s still all this.” He waved his arm at his domain. “And there’s Linda, sweet lass that she is.” The last was said in a broad brogue. He frowned, glancing from side to side and mugging a ludicrously furtive expression, then leaned forward. “Oh, and you don’t have to mention the jackalope business to Linda. She’s a softhearted one, you know.”
“You mean she wouldn’t approve of petty larceny.”
“Unkind, Frank, very unkind.” He looked over Frank’s shoulder. “And here she is, just in time to give her old da a chance to take the shine off Ben’s easy opinion of himself.”
“Dad. Frank.” Linda was unsmiling, her face drawn.
“Would you watch the bar for me for a bit, darlin’, while I give Ben a lesson in humility?”
“Sure, Dad.” She laid a copy of the Los Angeles Times on the bar and exchanged places with Collins. “Take a look at page three.” Linda gestured at the paper. Frank opened it and scanned the headlines. About halfway down the second column, the headline read TWO DEAD IN BIZARRE MURDER. “Dr. Michael Sorensen, leading infertility specialist, and his brother-in-law, Dennis Winthrop, were found dead in their Linda Vista home Tuesday morning by Maria Gutierrez, the Sorensens’ maid. Ms. Gutierrez let herself into the Linda Vista home about ten o’clock and discovered the decapitated bodies in the game room, where the noted hunter had trophies from around world. Neighbors heard her screaming and called the Pasadena police. The investigating officer, Lt. Warren Isham, refused to speculate on a motive for the killings. The victim’s wife, Denise Sorensen, said that her husband had received several threats from animal rights people since his conviction for poaching Desert bighorn sheep last November. Both Winthrop and Sorensen were prominent in trophy-hunting circles.”
“It’s him.” Linda’s mouth trembled ever so slightly. “I called Wayne Marx. It’s his byline. The Times doesn’t go in for gory details. Sorensen had been tortured before he was killed. Wayne said the skin was torn up, probably with pliers. The killer duct-taped horns on Sorensen’s head and left it on the mantelpiece. God, they’ve got to catch him, Frank.”
“I’ll call Dewey right away. He’ll talk with the Pasadena PD.” He reached across the bar and took her hand. “It’ll be all right. They’ll get him.” But before he gets someone else? he wondered. A familiar sense of dread squatted in his stomach like a dead toad. He felt powerless, waiting in helpless frustration. The pale face floated before his inner eye and stared at him with dead pink-rimmed eyes.
Highway 395 widens into four lanes just below Pearsonville, striving to become an interstate. A nice drive ruined. Cars doing eighty,
eighty-five, and more flew by Frank’s truck, in a hurry, making time. “Did L.A. to Bishop in under five hours,” they’d brag later. What an achievement. Maybe a pneumatic tube was the answer. Pop a sleepy pill, climb into the tube, and—poof—wake up in Reno. Miss the whole boring mess.
Sixty, that’s it, folks. Just go on around me. I’m doin’ sixty. Frank’s hostility was driving away the blues.
The cell phone’s reedy ring trilled above the engine noise.
“Flynn.”
“Flynn? And here I thought I was calling my old pal Eddie, ‘Redhawk’ Laguna. Man, you sound just like him.” The sandy voice was clear and distinct, dropping the words into the ether. Frank glanced at the caller ID; the number was blocked, probably a pay phone.
“How you doin’, Miller? You’re the white one. Roy, isn’t it?”
“‘Roy, isn’t it?’ That’s good. You got style, Francisco, my little brown buddy. I should’ve noticed that. Didn’t quite fit with an Eddie, did it?” Miller paused, his breathing audible in Frank’s ear. “Well, thanks for asking. I’m doing good, doing just fine. Had a few bumps. But life’s full of ups and downs, right?”
Frank waited, let the silence take up the slack.
“Just called to catch up on things, you know. Let you know we’re neighbors again out here in the wide-open spaces.”
As Frank pulled the truck off to the side of the road, the air blast from a semi shook the cab.
“Just curious. How’d you come by my cell number?”
“Curiosity killed the cat, Frank. Brother Jason caught lots of the curious ones. Put a real dent in the gene pool. I guess that’s gasoline under the bridge. As a matter of fact, you wrote the number on one of your cards, Mr. BLM Cop, but I rescued it from a terrible fire. Man, that was tragic, young Christian couple like that. Think God was listening, Francisco?”
“What’s on your mind, Miller?”
“Now it’s just ‘Miller.’ What happened to ‘Roy’? Man, you blow hot and cold. Not like blood relations, Francisco; they stick by you.”
“Yeah, that’s true. Oh, by the way, give my regards to the family
when you see them next. Oops, slipped my mind. You’re out of relations now. Sorry for your losses, Miller, but a guy like you must make a lot of friends. Gotta go now, Roy, got things to do.” He disconnected and dialed up Lieutenant Dewey.
“Dewey. It’s Frank Flynn. I just had a call from Roy Miller.”
“You get the number? What time did he call?”
“I just hung up this minute. He probably called from a pay phone; the number was blocked. I’m on Three Ninety-five, just above Pearsonville. Listen, he said we were neighbors again, meaning he’s back in the Mojave. Trying to rattle my cage.”
“Pay attention, Flynn. You’re on the top of the guy’s list. You know about Sorensen?”
“Yeah, I was going to give you a call.”
“Read it in the Los Angeles Times. Already talked with Pasadena PD. The guy’s a real sicko.”
“That’s not news to me, Lieutenant.”
“Let me know if he contacts you again.”
“You can count on it.”
Linda was going to have to stay away for a while. A wave of relief swept over him. Linda would be okay. Miller was coming for him, the one who’d killed his brother Jason. His fear mixed with elation. The waiting would be over. He refused to think about what was in his heart.