Down Solo (7 page)

“Sweatin’ a little?” A high, nasal voice, male. I know the voice, but I can’t place it.

“Who is this?”

“This is Jason Hamel. You’ve got something I want, I’ve got something you want, and I’m tired of fuckin’ around.” If this is Jason Hamel, he’s thrown out his scripture-quoting, righteous Christian act like it’s last night’s Halloween costume.

“Where’s my daughter? Put her on the phone, now.”

“Listen, you freak, I don’t know how you survived a bullet in your head, but I should have put another one between your eyes.” A whiney snarl in my ear, hard to square with the silver-maned gent on the website.

Confronted with my killer, I can only blurt, “MINDY . . . NOW,” a spastic shout while I swerve to avoid an SUV full of kids in baseball uniforms trying to make a left turn through the light that I was running. The Z’s on its own now, skidding at an angle until it mashes into a parked pickup truck full of furniture. The guy driving the SUV rolls down a window and yells, “What, are you crazy?” and drives away. I watch as the pickup driver starts to get out of his truck.

The voice on the phone says, “Stew on it a bit longer, bitch,” and clicks off. I do the prudent thing under the circumstances and peel out, heading toward the coast.

¤ ¤ ¤

It’s a hot and crowded day at the beach. I have to park off Main on Brooks and walk because I don’t have any money for beach-lot parking. I cut through a river of people milling on the boardwalk and past the park where the Rollerbladers skate to music blasting from a portable PA system and skateboarders perform tricks on a wooden ramp.

At the shoreline, children are wading in the shallow water. A skinny man in oversize flowered trunks stands knee deep in the surf; I watch a wave hit him in the chest and knock him over. I’m wandering now, still without a plan, clutching my cell phone and waiting for Jason Hamel to let me talk to my daughter.

I head south on the boardwalk, caught in the current of tourists and locals, hustlers and crazies, and other regulars roaming the strip between the shops and the beach. Kids dressed up like hippies from the sixties are hanging out, the girls wearing tie-dyes and granny glasses. Cops follow close on the heels of a group of five black teenagers wearing baggy pants, oversize tee shirts, and identical basketball shoes. A turbaned man playing a guitar glides by on Rollerblades, weaving through the slow-moving crowd.

To my right, on the perimeter of the sand, are the vendors, their wares laid out on colorful blankets; jewelry and carved wood, stone pipes with screens in them, pottery, and herbal health potions. I navigate around a knot of people crowded around two jugglers throwing flaming kerosene-dipped torches, a volunteer onlooker now standing in the line of fire as the burning sticks sail behind and in front of him, only inches away. Wild-eyed panhandlers pick on the tourists at the edge of the throng.

North of Thornton, the crowd thins out. I’m about to turn back when I notice a familiar figure in the sand. He looks up and grins.

“Hey, my mon, Charlie, I been waiting on you.” It’s Daniel, sitting at a card table full of small prisms and colored-glass pyramids. At the center of the table is a deck of odd-looking cards and a placard that says, “Past, present, future, right here, right now, only ten dollars.”

“Sit down, sit down. Good to see you, mon.” Daniel gestures for me to sit in the empty chair at his table. A bearded dwarf wearing only speedos and wraparound sunglasses is bearing down on me, pulling a cart with a legless man playing a Cajun waltz on an accordion. Daniel whistles and says, “Some mighty strange people we got here. And I seen plenty strange.”

“I’ll bet you have,” I say, taking a seat. “I don’t have time for chit-chat. I’m in a jam, big time.”

Daniel grins again and says, “Charlie Miner, battling de forces of evil, all by himself.” Why he thinks this is funny, I don’t know, but it’s pissing me off.

I gesture toward the prisms and cards on the table. “So what’s up with this bullshit?”

“Props, mon, all for show.”

“Props?” I turn over the top card of the deck. It shows a man hanging upside down. Or is the card upside down?

“De white mon don’t believe in direct knowledge of de hidden world. So he need to see juju, voodoo, mumbo jumbo. Props . . .” He makes a gesture of dismissal at the items on the table. “They are not necessary for seeing.”

“And what do you see for me? Somebody’s got to see something, because I’m flying blind.”

“For you?” Daniel locks eyes with mine, seeming to stare right into me. “In you I see a sickness of de mind and spirit.” He pauses and seems to consult some inner voice. “Give me your hand.”

I hesitate. I don’t need some charlatan’s crap about my planets being out of alignment. On the other hand, this guy has definitely got an angle I’ve never seen before. I let him take my hand.

A current passes between us, powerful but gentle. Daniel grips my hand and closes his eyes, then opens them and says, “Commune with your spirit to begin healing.”

“Commune with my spirit?”

“You’ve been given a chance to heal. Death hasn’t been allowed to touch you. Do not leave your body for too long, or He will have his way and collect you.” Totally uninflected English, without a hint of an accent.

“What’s too long?” And how does Daniel know about roaming?

“You will know. You can feel it when it’s close.” I remember the panic that almost took me at Tanya’s hotel room. Daniel’s hand relaxes and lets go of mine.

“That’s it?”

“For now, yes.”

“They have my daughter.”

“Yes, the man who took your life.”

“How do you know that?”

Daniel laughs, then shrugs. “I see it.”

“I know who you are now.”

“That’s good. We’ve been worried about you.”

“What happened to me?”

“You were part of the twenty percent.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“We have an eighty percent recovery rate. Four out of five of our patients are clean after a year.”

“And the twenty percent . . . ?”

“Well . . .” Daniel picks up the hanging-man card and shows it to me. “Some have psychotic breaks and are never the same, and some completely repress the whole experience. Like you. We brought you home and I watched you go back to using as if nothing had ever happened.”

“How does all this explain my condition?”

“There’s no answer to that, except that we’ve seen it before.”

“There are others?”

“Yes, Charlie Miner. You’re looking at one.”

There’s nothing left to say.

I look up as Daniel nods toward the passing carnival. A pair of female body builders approaches, hard round breasts pushing against identical British-flag bikini tops. One of them is carrying a Chihuahua, taut and wiry, against her muscular tan body.

I shake my head after the women pass. “You know what they say about making love to a gorilla?”

“What’s dat?” Now he’s back to doing the Rasta thing.

“You’re not through until the gorilla’s through.”

Daniel grins and says, “Dat’s what dey say about heroin.”

“Yeah, it’s like that too.”

“Don’t you sweetheart me, asshole. I’m calling the cops.”

“I’ve got a better idea. Why don’t you tell me exactly where this Jason Hamel lives so I can try and get my daughter back that he KIDNAPPED AFTER BURNING DOWN MY FUCKING HOUSE?” I’m screaming now, and people are stopped on the sidewalk and staring at me.

A big tourist in an “I Love Venice Beach” tee shirt says, “Hey fella, watch your language.” He’s shielding his wife and two little kids as if I’m a hyena loose from the zoo. I keep walking.

“He what?” Tanya sputters. I repeat myself, quietly this time. Save the rage. Focus.

“That’s crazy, Charlie, he’s not like that at all.”

I tell her Cal’s version of the fire and about the phone call.

“He called you a bitch? He must have gone completely insane. What are you going to do?”

“As soon as you tell me where he lives, I’m going to track his sorry ass down and make this right.” Now there’s a plan to admire, but I do have at least one useful tool on my side. Like I’m not afraid of guns.

“Charlie . . .”

“I don’t want to hear it.”

“I need my car. And my phone. And I’m sorry.”

I tell her where the BMW is, keys under the seat. Can’t help her with the phone, I’m on a mission. She gives me an address: 2412 East Rustic Road in Santa Monica Canyon.

She’s sorry.

¤ ¤ ¤

What’s really sorry is the condition of the Z, with its front end all mashed in and the hood buckled. And the parking ticket. But who gives a shit at this point?

I buckle up and take off, turning north on Main. Rustic Canyon is a neighborhood embedded in Santa Monica Canyon, a funky-rich world of its own between the beach and Sunset Boulevard.

My phone barks. My ex-wife. I’m not in the mood, but she might have heard from Mindy. I flip the phone open.

“You fucking prick! I call your home line, your office line, your fucking cell phone, Mindy’s cell, and nobody has the courtesy to fucking pick up?” She’s snarling at me. I should be used to it but I’m not. It’s why I left. It’s why Mindy had to leave. Sober, Allison is cold and sharp and keeps her acid voice level. I prefer her drunk.

“I thought she was with you.” Truth, the first casualty of war, and the white flag is in shreds. I hang up.

Tanya’s phone rings. I’m heading down the California Incline toward the Pacific Coast Highway. Caller ID says “Alan Hunter.” Might be an interesting conversation, but now’s not the time.

A right on Entrada gets me into the Canyon. A few twists and turns and I’m on East Rustic, which dead-ends at 2412. A jungle of sycamore and ivy, out of control Korean boxwood hedge competing with bougainvillea, an open gate and a long curving driveway.

I take the Z slow up the bumpy driveway, crunching gravel. I get past a bend to the right and see the house, a traditional Spanish bungalow restored to showcase condition in the midst of vegetation gone wild. Under a picture window, up against the house, there’s a perfectly tended rose garden. I turn off the engine and hear dogs yapping. I pull the gun from my glove compartment, tuck it in my pants, and button my jacket to cover it.

Dogs yap furiously as I approach the door. It opens before I knock. I’m standing face to face with a mild-mannered gent, slender with silver hair and round, wire-rimmed glasses. He’s wearing an Argyle cardigan sweater, gray flannels, and oxblood loafers with shiny pennies in them. Old school. The dogs are golden cocker spaniels and they shut up when the guy makes a little gesture with his hand.

“Can I help you?” This is not the guy who told me to “stew on it a bit longer, bitch.” Who said he was Jason Hamel. But he is the guy from the mining website, which makes him the real Jason Hamel. Identity theft? Multiple Personality Disorder? I’m clearing my throat and trying to decide whether to pull out my gun or apologize for bothering him, but he glances over at my car and says, “You must be Mr. Miner. Come in, please.”

I follow him into an attractive, bright, and spacious living room. The picture window looks out on a short yard and a view of the canyon. Hamel gestures for me to sit on the sofa. My back is to the window. He sits opposite me in a richly upholstered dark leather chair.

“I hope you brought the documents?” He says, businesslike, but pleasant. The gun wants to come out, but I keep my cool.

“The documents aren’t the issue right now, Mr. Hamel. My daughter has been kidnapped and nothing else is going to happen until she’s safe with me.”

He stares at me, blinking furiously, then looks down at his feet. He pulls a cell phone out of his pocket, hits some keys, and hands it to me.

“Is this your daughter?”

And there’s Mindy, her black eye makeup smeared, her hair wild with its streak of green, looking at the camera like a feral cat about to reach out and slash someone.

“Where did you take this?”

“I didn’t take it. It was sent to my phone.”

“So who sent it?” I’m not fond of games on the best of days.

“My son, Jason. He texted me that this is the girl he intends to marry.” His expression transforms from a prim belligerence to sadness, as if he has just resigned himself to some awful truth. He takes back the phone and hits a button and hands it back to me.

Now I’m looking at Mindy and a character, standing with his arm around her, that my mind rejects entirely. In fact, my mind rejects Hamel, his dogs, and his living room.

¤ ¤ ¤

I was four houses away from my own, cruising on booze and heroin in the warm night, the empty attaché case in my left hand, the bike on autopilot, when the silver Mustang pulled up next to me. I noticed the driver first because he looked like a gorilla, hunched over so that his head would clear the ceiling, his eyes as dark and dumb as buttons on a coat. In the same split second I saw Ratboy, low in the passenger-side window, and suddenly, impossibly, a gun, a pop, a sting at my temple, and I flew off the bike onto the grass between the sidewalk and the curb.

I lay there and heard a car door open. Footsteps, then the attaché case, which for some reason I still gripped, yanked from my hand. A nasal voice said, “Fuck you, turkey.” A car door slammed. The roaring in my head began.

¤ ¤ ¤

I can still feel the grass on my cheek. Through the noise, I hear my name being called. I see light, and the anxious face of Jason Hamel.

“Are you all right?” He’s leaning forward, half out of his chair with his hand extended.

“Yeah, low blood sugar, no problem.” I wave him back into his chair and consider my revelation. Ratboy put the bullet in my head, and Ratboy’s got Mindy.

“You sat there, immobile, staring through me for over two minutes. Can I get you anything?”

“Forget about me. Where’s your son now?”

“Why, he’s on his way here. He called me about twenty minutes ago.”

“If that’s your boy, your wife must be a strange looking creature.”

“My wife died two years ago. Jason was adopted when he was two. His mother was an amphetamine addict. We tried to raise him in the way of the Lord, but another power has kept its grip on him.”

The echo of the hurricane in my head reminds me that I’m in uncharted territory. A silver Mustang. The car that took Mindy away.

“Your son shot at me and kidnapped my daughter. I believe he burned my house down. What do you propose I do when he gets here?”

“You’ll do what you have to do, I imagine. He’s beyond reasoning with.”

“What do I need to know?”

“He has a sidekick that drives him everywhere, since he can’t drive himself. Big brute, dumb as dirt, has a violent streak, and is entirely loyal to Jason.”

“Why can’t Jason drive?”

“He got arrested for the seventh time. Oxycodone and cocaine.” He looks at me apologetically. “A couple of sexual assault charges. I bailed him out every time. The best lawyers. This time he got two years probation plus a suspended license. He’s fresh out of rehab, a condition of his probation.”

The dogs prick up their ears in unison. I hear the crunch of tires on gravel and car doors slam shut. The dogs begin to yap and scramble around the table. Hamel stands up and turns to face the foyer. I stand and watch the front door open and Ratboy enter. I pull Mo’s gun from under my belt and point it at Hamel’s prodigal son. The dogs shut up and there’s a moment of silence.

“Well, if it isn’t dead man walking. We should kiss and make up, since you’re my future father-in-law.” He sneers and winks at the same time, an especially bad combination on his ugly face. I notice he has a lazy eye that seems to be looking at the tip of his nose.

I raise Mo’s Walther and pull back the hammer. I don’t know how heavy the pull on the trigger is, but I’m just a twitch away from blowing Ratboy’s head off.

“Where’s Mindy? That’s all that’s going to happen now—you’re going to tell me where she is and we’re going to go find her. Got it?”

Ratboy smirks and his good eye moves past me and over my shoulder. I hear shots as the window behind me explodes. I fire the Walther and Ratboy staggers backward, his hand clutched to his left shoulder. Two more shots from outside thwack into the living-room wall, and I hit the floor while Ratboy turns and runs out the door.

Tires on gravel.