Coyote Blue (22 page)

The phone rang once and a woman answered. "Camelot."

"I want to talk to Sam."

"Do you have a last name, sir?"

"No, just Coyote."

"I'm sorry, sir, we have no guest listed under Coyote."

"Not me, I'm here. His name is Hunter."

"We have no Coyote Hunter. There's a Samuel Hunter."

"That's him."

"One minute while I connect you."

"I'll bet you're ugly in person."

"What?" Sam's sleepy voice came over the phone.

"Sam, I found the girl."

"Where? Where are you? What time is it? Who's ugly?"

"Morning. You have to come here. I'm at a place called Nardonne's Harley-Davidson Shop. The girl is here, and the motorcycle with her picture on it is parked outside."

"Give me directions. I'll be there in a few minutes. Keep Calliope there. I have to check out and get the car."

"Take a cab."

"You didn't take my car?"

"No, this car is better. You can talk to the phone. Your car is gone. I sold it."

"You what?"

"Take a cab. I'm in a big black car. Off."

The phone clicked, cutting Sam off in the middle of a tirade. Coyote didn't know whether the girl had a phone in her car, but he decided to try. "Call the girl," he said to the phone.

The phone beeped through the numbers. "This is Carla," a sexy woman's voice said. "Would you like this on your phone bill or your credit card?"

"Phone bill," Coyote said.

"If you like leather, press one," Carla said. "Twins, press two. For California blondes, press three. Big bottoms, press -" Coyote picked up the handset and pressed three.

Another sexy voice came on, "Hi, I'm Brandy, who are you?"

"Coyote."

"Would you like to know what I'm wearing, Coyote?"

"No, I have to tell the girl to stay here until Sam comes."

"We'll take as long as Sam needs. Is Sam getting hard?"

"No, he's pissed off about his car."

There was a pause and the sound of her lighting a cigarette. Brandy said, "Okay. Let's start over."

~* * *~

Minty waited for the second limo at the pay phone outside the minimart. He flipped through his address book until he found the detective's number, then dialed.

The phone rang twice, then there was the sound of the receiver rattling and falling. Finally a sleepy, hostile man's voice said, "What?"

Minty said, "Jake, this is M.F., at Camelot."

"Fuck that. This is harassment. It's… it's five thirty in the morning. You said I could have all the time I needed to pay."

"I'm not calling about that, Jake. I need a favor. One of the limos has been stolen."

"Why call me at home? You guys have Lo-Jack beacons in those limos, don't you? Call the station. They'll track it and have it back in half an hour."

"I can't call the station, Jake. This is delicate. I need to get it back without bringing the police into it."

"You're fucked. The Lo-Jack trackers are installed in the cruisers."

"Can you put one in one of our limos? Just until I find the stolen one."

"No way. The tracking system takes hours to install."

"Jake, I need a favor. Just a favor. I haven't mentioned what you owe us."

"This strong-arm shit isn't your style, M.F."

"But you
can
get use of a unit with the Lo-Jack tracker in it?"

"Meet me at the station in a half hour."

"What's the range on the tracker?"

"About a mile, depending on the terrain. Farther in the desert. You're not going to be able to cover much area with only one car."

"Then make it fifteen minutes. And Jake -"

"What?"

"Thank you." Minty hung up.
So much for the police,
he thought.
Now if I can get it back before the casino finds out. If not, I guess it's time to go shopping for a red bow tie.

~* * *~

Calliope was sure she could do it: if Grubb was trapped under a Chrysler she could lift the car and pull him out. You heard about it all the time:
Hundred-Pound Mom Lifts Two-Ton Car to Save Trapped Tot.
It seemed to happen often enough that it should be part of Lamaze training. "Okay, now breathe, focus, grab the bumper… now lift!" Yep, she could do it – a Chrysler on each arm if she had to. She wasn't so sure about getting Grubb back from Lonnie. Maybe if that other woman wasn't with him, being so hostile and negative.

She was feeling a little better now that the sun was coming up. She'd been shivering since the punks had broken her back window, from nerves and the cold. And she didn't have enough gas money to leave the Z running with the heater on while she waited for Lonnie to come out of the Harley shop. She might not have enough to make it home as it was. Besides, something was wrong with the car; she'd tached it too high while running from the police and something had given way in clatter and smoke.

As she watched, Lonnie came through the front door of the shop carrying Grubb's diaper bag. Calliope swallowed hard, trying to push down her fear – fear of failure. She got out of the Z. The woman followed Lonnie holding Grubb in her arms. Calliope ran toward them, then stopped when she saw the woman's face. It was like one painful purple bruise with eyes.

"Lonnie," Calliope called.

Lonnie and the woman turned. Grubb saw his mother and reached out. Lonnie pushed down Grubb's hand. "What are you doing here?"

"I came to get Grubb. You shouldn't have taken him."

"Talk to the judge. He's mine half the time."

He was right. Calliope had gone to Social Services once before when Lonnie took Grubb on a road trip. Her caseworker told her that the law couldn't do anything to help.

"You don't want him. You just want to hurt me."

Lonnie laughed, threw his head back, and shook with laughter. For all the times he had postured and threatened and screamed and pounded, he had never really scared her. She was scared now.

"You shouldn't take him on a run like this, Lonnie. What if you get busted?"

"Run? What run? We're just on a little family camping trip, aren't we, Cheryl?" The woman tucked her face behind Grubb.

"Give him to me, please," Calliope pleaded.

Lonnie climbed onto his bike grinning and hit the starter. The bike fired up and Lonnie shouted over the engine, "Go home. I'll bring him back in a few days." Cheryl climbed on behind him and he dropped the bike into gear.

"No!" Calliope started to run after them. Lonnie gunned the bike and roared off.

She shuffled to a stop and saw Grubb reaching out over Cheryl's shoulder. Her eyes blurred with tears. She turned and ran to her car, wiped her eyes, and saw the limo parked down the street. Someone was sitting in it, just watching her. "What are you looking at?" she screamed.

~* * *~

Sam made the chambermaid help him search the hotel room for his wallet for fifteen minutes before giving up and leaving her with a promise of a tip on the credit card. He was thinking
This is like being stuck in some Kafkaesque Roadrunner cartoon
when the taxi from the Acme Cab Company pulled up, the driver wearing a fez.
Animated by Hieronymus Bosch
, Sam thought.

In the cab, he said, "Do you know a Harley-Davidson shop called Nardonne's?"

"Bad part of town. Cost you double."

"It's broad daylight."

"Oh, it is. My shift is over. Sorry."

"Okay, double," Sam said. Why quibble? He couldn't pay the guy anyway.

When they pulled in behind the limo, Sam said, "Wait here, I'll get your money." He got out and looked down the street to the Harley shop, then went up to the limo and pounded on the blacked-out window. The window whirred down. Coyote grinned.

"Where is she?"

"Took off. Just now."

"Why didn't you stop her?"

"She didn't want to be stopped. We'll find her – she's following the biker, and we know where he's going."

The cabdriver beeped his horn. "Give me my wallet," Sam said. Coyote handed the wallet out the window. Sam rifled through it and came up empty. "There's no money left."

"Nope," Coyote said.

The cabdriver leaned on the horn. Sam signaled for him to wait, ran around to the other side of the limo, and got in.

"Go," Sam said.

"What about the cabdriver?"

"Fuck him."

"That's the spirit." Coyote started the limo and peeled away. He checked the rearview mirror. "He's not following."

"Good.":

"He's talking to his radio. Got a smoke?" '

Sam dug a pack of cigarettes out of his jacket pocket, tapped one out, and lit it. "Where's my car?"

"I sold it."

"You can't sell it without the title."

"I got a good deal, five thousand."

"Are you nuts? Five thousand wouldn't buy the stereo."

"I needed to win my money back. I won a lot of money on the machine you put the cards in, but a shaman with a stick won it back from me."

Sam butted his cigarette in the ashtray and hung his head in his hands, trying to let it all sink in. "So you sold my car for five grand?"

"Yep." Coyote snatched the mashed cigarette and relit it.

"And where is that money?"

"The shaman had strong cheating medicine."

"That's the kind of thinking that got Manhattan sold for a box of beads."

"So they still tell that story? It was one of my best tricks. They gave us many beads for that island. They didn't know that you can't own land."

Sam sighed and slouched in his seat, thinking he should be angry, or worried about his car, but strangely he was more concerned with catching Calliope. They were on the highway now. Sam glanced at the speedometer. "Slow down to the speed limit. We don't need cop trouble. I'm assuming you stole this car."

"I counted coup: stealing a tethered horse."

"Tell me," Sam said.

Coyote told the story of Minty and the limo, turning it into a fable full of danger and magic, making himself the hero. He was coming to the part about the car phone when it rang.

Sam reached for the answer button and pulled back his hand in disgust. "What's this gunk all over the phone? It looks like -"

"I'm not to that part of the story yet."

"Then you answer it."

"Speak," Coyote said, and the phone lit up and clicked. "Is that you, Brandy?"

A very deep, calm voice came over the speakerphone, "I want the car back, now. Pull over and stop. I'm a couple of minutes behind you. The police are -"

"Off," Coyote said. The phone hung up. Coyote turned to Sam. "This is a good car. You can talk to the phone. Her name is Brandy. She's very friendly."

"Uh-huh," Sam said.

"That wasn't her."

"Pull off at the next exit."

Chapter 27 – Food, Gas,

Enlightenment, Next Right King's

Lake, Nevada

The exit sign said,
King's Lake
, but when they pulled off and followed the ramp around the base of a mesa, there was no lake, no life at all, just a dirt road and a strip of gray wooden buildings with faded facades. A weathered wooden sign read,
Emergency, Nevada
. The population had been crossed out and repainted a dozen times until, finally, someone had painted a big zero at the bottom and the words
We gived up
. Coyote stopped the car.

"What do you want to do here?"

"I don't know, but we had to get off the highway before they caught up with us." Sam got out of the car and peered down the empty dirt street, shielding his eyes against the sun with his hand. A prairie dog scampered across the road and under the wooden sidewalk. "This road continues out of town. Maybe it joins up with another major road somewhere else. We need a map."

"No map in the car," Coyote said. "We can ask someone."

Sam looked around at the empty buildings. "Right, let's just stop in at the chamber of commerce and ask someone that's been dead for a hundred years."

"Can we do that?" Coyote asked, with complete sincerity.

"No, we can't do that! It's a ghost town. There's no one here."

"I was going to ask that prairie dog." Coyote walked to where the prairie dog had disappeared under the walkway. "Hey, little one, come out."

Sam stood behind the trickster, shaking his head. He heard a squeak from under the walk.

Coyote looked to Sam. "He doesn't trust you. He won't come out unless you go away."

"Tell him we're in a hurry." Sam couldn't believe he was being snubbed by a rodent.

"He knows that, but he says you have shifty eyes. Go over there and wait." Coyote pointed down the sidewalk.

Sam walked past a hitching post and sat on a bench in front of the abandoned saloon. He watched the road leading to the highway, waiting for the dust cloud from pursuing police cars. The road remained empty. He watched the prairie dog scamper out from under the sidewalk and stand on his hind legs as Coyote talked to him. Maybe he had been a little hasty in thinking Calliope nuts for talking to her kitchen pals. They probably thought he had shifty eyes as well.

After a few moments of talking and chattering Coyote threw his head back and laughed, then left the prairie dog in the street and came to where Sam was sitting.

"You've got to hear this one," Coyote said. "This farmer has a pig with a wooden leg -"

"Hey," Sam interrupted. "Does he know where the road goes?"

"Oh, yeah. But this is a really good joke. You see -"

"Coyote!" Sam shouted.

Coyote looked hurt. "You're nasty. No wonder he doesn't trust you. He says that he saw an orange sports car go by a while ago. He says that there's a repair place down the road."

"Tell him thanks," Sam said. Coyote headed back toward the prairie dog. Sam dug into his windbreaker for his cigarettes and found a chocolate mint he had taken from the hotel room pillow the night before. "Wait," Sam called. He ran to Coyote's side. The prairie dog bolted under the sidewalk. "Let me talk to him."

Sam bent down and placed the mint in the dirt by the sidewalk. "Look, we really appreciate your help."

The prairie dog didn't answer. "I'm not a bad guy once you get to know me," Sam said. He waited, wondering what exactly he was waiting for. After a minute he started feeling really stupid. "Okay then, have a nice day."

He went back to where Coyote stood looking at a sign on the saloon door.
No Indians or Dogs Allowed.

Coyote said, "What do they have against dogs?"

"What about the Indians part?"

Coyote shrugged.

"It pisses me off." Sam yanked the sign off the door and threw it into the street.

"Good, you're still alive. Let's go." Coyote turned and headed for the car.

"I'll drive," Sam said.

Coyote threw the keys over his shoulder. Sam snatched them out of the air. As they pulled away the prairie dog dashed into the street and grabbed the mint thinking,
That pig joke works every time.

~* * *~

They drove for twenty minutes, bouncing the big Lincoln over ruts and rocks, and pushing it through washed-out, wind-eroded terrain where the road was reduced to the mere suggestion of tire tracks. The cellular phone rang twice more, but they did not answer it. Sam was suspecting that, once again, Coyote was playing some sort of trick when he spotted the corrugated steel building sticking up out of the desert. The building consisted of one story, roughly the size of a two-car garage. The steel walls were striped with rust and pulling away from the frame in places. The area around the building was littered with abandoned vehicles, some dating back fifty years. Above the doorway, a ragged hole that had been cut with a torch, hung an elegantly hand-lettered sign that read,
Satori Japanese Auto Repair
. In the doorway stood a slightly built Oriental man in saffron robes, grinning as they pulled up. Calliope's Z was parked in front.

Sam stopped the car and got out. The Oriental man folded his hands and bowed. Sam nodded in return and approached the man. "Do you know where the girl is that was driving that car?"

"What is the sound of one hand clapping?" the monk said.

Sam said, "Excuse me?"

The monk ran to Sam and jumped up, screaming in Sam's face, "Don't think. Act!"

Thinking he was being attacked, Sam raised his arms to cover his face and inadvertently hit the monk in the mouth with his elbow, knocking the little man to the ground.

The monk looked up at Sam and smiled. "That was the right answer." His teeth were red with blood.

"I'm sorry," Sam said, offering his hand to help the monk up. "I didn't know what you were doing."

The monk waved Sam away, climbed to his feet, and began to dust himself off. "The first step to knowledge is not knowing. The girl is inside with the Master."

"Thanks," Sam said. He motioned for Coyote to follow and went into the building. It was one room, dimly lit from the doorway and by sunlight filtering through the gaps in the walls. Around the edges, workbenches were stacked with greasy car parts and tools. In the center of the room, on a grass mat, Calliope sat with another monk, this one ancient, drinking tea from tiny cups. She looked up and saw Sam, then without a word ran into his arms.

"I lost him, Sam. The car started making this horrible noise and I had to pull off the highway. Lonnie took Grubb and he's gone."

Sam held her and patted her head, telling her it would be okay, not really believing it, but knowing that was what you were supposed to say. She was soft and warm against him and a musky smell of girl sweat and jasmine was coming off her hair. He felt himself getting aroused and hated himself for the inappropriateness of the feeling, thinking,
You sick bastard.

Almost as in answer, Calliope said, "You feel too good," and buried her face in his chest. She was crying.

Behind them, still standing in the doorway, Coyote said, "Let's go."

Calliope looked around at him, then to Sam. Sam said, "A friend. Calliope, this is Coyote. Coyote, Calliope."

"Howdy," Coyote said. Calliope smiled.

"The Master will now fix the car," the younger monk said. Sam looked to the tatami mat; the old monk was gone. The young monk turned and went out into the sun.

Outside, the Z's hood was open and the old monk was bent over the engine, running his hands over the hoses and wires, but staring off into the distance. Sam realized that he was blind, and noticed that there were fingers missing from each of his hands.

"What's he doing?" Coyote asked.

"Quiet," the young monk said. "He is finding the problem."

"We really have to get going," Sam said. "Can we leave the car here and pick it up later?"

The monk said, "Does a dog have a Buddha nature?"

"Does a fish have a watertight asshole?" said Coyote.

The young monk turned to the trickster and bowed. "You are wise," he said.:

"This is nuts," Sam said. "We've got another car. Let's go."

"We've lost them," Calliope said.

"No, we haven't. We know where they're going, Cal."

"How do you know?"

"It's a long story. Coyote helped."

"Not enough," Coyote said. He pointed to the police cruiser that was bouncing across the desert toward them. Sam looked to the limo and realized that they had run out of time, and, more important, places to run. The cruiser slid to a stop by the limo and they were all engulfed by a cloud of dust. When it cleared, a seven-foot black man stood beside the limo. A bald man in a sport coat was leveling a riot shotgun over the hood at them.

"I'd like the keys to the limousine, please," Minty said.

Calliope looked at Sam. "Are we in trouble?"

"This is not good," Sam said.

The monk said, "Life is suffering."

"You need to get laid," Coyote said.

Sam dug into his pocket for the keys. "Careful," said the man with the gun.

Minty Fresh approached Sam. "Relax, Jake," he said. Then to Sam, "Mr. Hunter, the police are not really involved in this. I just want two things. I want the keys to the car, and I want to know what the hell is going on here."

"Quiet!" the monk said. "The Master is finished." They looked to the Z, where the old monk was staring blankly in their direction.

"Disharmony in the cam chakra," he announced. The young monk bowed. Sam wondered about the Master's missing fingers.

"Well?" Minty said.

Sam said, "Do you have a little time?"

~* * *~

Minty Fresh sat on the tatami mat with Sam while the young monk, who they had found out was named Steve, served them tea. He'd sent Jake back to town and the others were outside fiddling with the broken sports car. Minty wanted some answers.

"Mr. Hunter," he began. "There is something very strange about your friend."

"Really? He seems fine to me. Tell me, though. Do you think I have shifty eyes?" Sam affected his best innocent look.

Oh, no, two of them
, Minty thought. "They look normal to me." They didn't look normal at all – they were golden. Minty hadn't noticed before.

Sam said, "I mean, do I look untrustworthy to you?"

"Mr. Hunter, you stole my employer's car."

"I'm really sorry about that. Besides that, though. Do I look shifty?"

Minty sighed. "No, not particularly."

"How about if you were shorter, say, eight inches tall."

"Mr. Hunter, what is this all about?"

"We really needed the car. It doesn't justify taking it, but we would have brought it back."

"Look, I'm not going to involve the police in this. Just tell me."

Sam took Minty through the story of Lonnie taking Grubb and the chase, leaving out as many details about Coyote as he could, making their destination in South Dakota seem close, easy. The story was slanted, however; Sam told it with a purpose in mind, thinking as he spoke,
You can't sell if you don't pitch.

Sam closed, "If we don't have the limo we won't be able to find Lonnie and get Calliope's baby back. You have a mother, don't you?" Sam waited.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Hunter, I can't let you have it. It's not mine. I'd lose my job."

"We'll bring it back after we get Grubb."

"I'm sorry," Minty said. He climbed to his feet and walked to the door, then turned. "I'm really sorry." He pushed his sunglasses up on his face and ducked through the hole in the steel. Sam followed him out.