Stateline (26 page)

My ears rang in the silence. Five minutes later I saw a heavy figure, stark in the moonlight, climb over the guardrail. The truck parked on the roadside pulled away and sped off into the night.

B
y the time the Nevada County sheriff arrived from Truckee, I had cleaned out the Nissan and carried all my stuff up to the highway, save for the tire chains. In the event some crazy mechanic ever got the car back on the road, he could have the chains with my blessing. I’d taken off my soaked boots and socks and was thawing my feet in my sleeping bag when they pulled up.

Sheriff Bill Cooper and his deputies seemed to be an efficient group. Within an hour, a search-and-rescue team arrived and lit up the hillside with portable lights. I waited in the back of a squad car while an electric winch pulled Michael Dean Stiles’s body out of the canyon on a gurney. A deputy also found his gun near where I told him to look.

“What about my car, fellas?” I said.

“You better get a hold of your insurance company and get that wreck out of our river,” a deputy said as he walked by.

“Thanks,” I called out to him.

It was ten o’clock when we left for the sheriff’s office. Sheriff Cooper had given me a plastic garbage bag for the miscellaneous junk from my car, which included jumper cables, a stack of papers from my glove box, an old football, and my sleeping bag. I asked him to stop at a 7-Eleven and he obliged, even went in with me and paid for my dinner, a couple of stale chili dogs. At his office we went over everything repeatedly, and I told him the truth, or at least what I figured he was entitled to know. I started with the murder of Sylvester Bascom, told him I tracked down a hooker in Vegas who was involved with what may have been a botched robbery, and added that I suspected she called her boyfriend, and he came after me. He asked me how the boyfriend would know to find me at the airport. I didn’t have an answer.

The questioning went on and on. I had a headache and was tired. Finally Cooper finished up around midnight and drove me to a hotel on Main Street in Truckee. He had not impounded my weapon as evidence. Apparently he believed my contention of self-defense, but he told me to expect a call from the Truckee PD detectives in the morning. I checked into the hotel and lugged my gear and the green garbage bag to my room. I thought about going to the bar next door, but I lay down on the bed briefly, just to rest my eyes, and a minute later I was out.

I woke at dawn in the strange room, still immersed in the surreal landscape of my dream. I was in a coffee shop, sitting at a table with Mr. 187 and Sheriff Grier from South Lake Tahoe. Mr. 187’s hair and beard were completely white. A birthday cake was brought to the table, and I tried to light the candles, but the flame kept going out. My father appeared and also tried to light the candles, without success. He made some reference to things not always happening as they should, then he and Mr. 187 walked away together. Sheriff Grier laughed and cut himself a piece of cake. In my peripheral vision there were blurry people and muted voices, but I couldn’t hear what they were saying.

• • •

While I was contemplating the dream that early morning, there was no way I could have known that two men were having a conversation that would have given my nocturnal visions a different perspective. They were fifty miles west of Truckee in the foothills above Sacramento, meeting in a room barely lit by the gray dawn. One man, with a salt-and-pepper mustache over yellowed teeth, looked at the cigar between his fingers, then broke it in half and dropped it in an ashtray.

“You let this thing get out of control. That’s not like you.”

“Look at it this way—Stiles was a liability,” the other man said, his eyes opaque against his dark face.

“Stiles?
You’re
becoming a liability. I hired you to protect my business interests. So you go kill some rich man’s son during a pointless robbery, then you and Stiles go fixin’ to whack this private eye, without my okay, and Stiles ends up dead. Stupid. I never expected that from you.”

“Maybe Stiles is best in a grave. Dead men can’t talk.”

“Well, now. Ain’t that the truth.”

The room was quiet, then the man with the dark skin and barrel-shaped body stepped from the shadows, his eyes glowing with a primal luster. He smiled and took another step, and Sheriff Conrad Pace involuntarily leaned back. He blinked, surprised at his own reflex. It was not like Sheriff Pace to be frightened. It was an emotion he hadn’t experienced in years. But when he looked at that wet smile, he felt oddly out of his element. It occurred to him that, given the right motivation, the man standing before him would tear him to pieces with his bare hands.

The feeling was gone in an instant, and Conrad Pace walked behind his desk. He sat and stared out his window to the wet, rolling pastures, where spirals of silver mist reached down from the sky and touched the jade hills. Had he made a mistake in enlisting Julo Nafui? As an enforcer, the man had no equal. But Nafui had run amuck; killing Bascom might well get Nafui arrested, even though half the force was on Pace’s pad. And Pace harbored no illusions about the eventual outcome once Nafui faced a murder charge. The big sheriff’s jaw tightened as he imagined Nafui implicating him in exchange for a plea bargain. That was unacceptable. He would have to do something about it. Pace looked up at Nafui, at the unnatural hulk of his torso, at his ugly, merciless face. Killing him would be easier said than done. Perhaps there were other options. Sheriff Pace raised his finger and pointed at Nafui.

“I’m gonna straighten this shit out, starting with the private eye,” Pace said. “You lay low, and I’ll call you when I need you.”

Nafui smiled widely, his teeth glistening with saliva. “Don’t make me wait too long,” he said. “I get antsy when I got nothing to do.”

• • •

The main drag of Truckee was deserted at 6:30
A.M.
The wind blew through the streets, echoing hollowly against the storefronts, sending bits of paper and trash swirling across the icy pavement. I had never felt it so cold. For a second I looked up and down the street, searching, then with a jolt realized my old faithful Nissan was on its side in the Truckee River. I walked about half a mile to a 7-Eleven, shivering, my hands deep in my coat pockets. The warmth of the store was a relief. I poured myself a large coffee.

“Damn, it’s cold,” I said to the clerk.

“This is nothing for Truckee. Hit forty-six below one year. It’s only about ten below now.”

I rubbed my unshaven mug and hiked back to the hotel. At eight-thirty I called my insurance company to report my car was totaled. They took down the information, then gave me the number of a local towing company that would recover the vehicle. My vehicle. Or now my ex-vehicle. The fucking Nissan—the car I had driven through my marriage, my divorce, through countless drunken episodes, and through three years of sobriety. I had owned it for almost my entire adulthood. It seemed unreal I would never drive it again; to my surprise, I felt a twinge of nostalgic sadness. The car and I had been through a lot together.

My cell rang, snapping me out of my despondent reverie. There were more important things to worry about, I told myself. Like finding out who was trying to kill me.

“Dan?” Cody’s voice said.

“Hey, Cody.”

“I’m all packed up and ready to go, man. Where should I meet you?”

Suddenly, having Cody around didn’t seem like such a bad idea. I gave him the name of the hotel in Truckee.

“I thought you were in South Lake,” he said.

“Yeah, I was on the way there and had a little car trouble.”

“It may be time to get a new car, Dirt.”

“I think you’re right. The Nissan’s totaled.”

“What? Were you drunk?”

“Sober, believe it or not. Remember those hookers I was telling you about? I think one of them sent her boyfriend and another dude after me. Somehow they found my car in the airport parking lot and cut the brake lines. Then they rammed me off Highway 80 with their truck. I flipped and ended up at the bottom of a canyon in the Truckee River.”

“Holy shit! Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I was lucky. But the guys came after me in the canyon.”

“Uh-oh,” he said. “What happened?”

“I told the first one to drop his gun–”

“But he didn’t,” Cody interjected.

“Yeah. And so I–”

“Blew his freaking head off?”

“No, I aimed low, but he moved and took it in the gut.”

“Christ, I’d rather get my brains blown out than take one in the gut,” Cody said. “I remember when one of our guys on the force had to wear a colostomy bag for six months.”

“This guy’s not gonna need a colostomy bag.”

“Oh.” There was a pause. “Well, fuck him. What about the other guy?”

“He opened up on me with an automatic weapon, sounded like an Uzi. I returned his fire and scared him away.”

“I guess we ought to go find this man and engage him in philosophical discussion, eh?”

“Sounds like a plan,” I said, no longer so reluctant to enlist Cody’s buffalo-style ways.

• • •

Before Cody hung up, I asked him to run a report on Michael Dean Stiles. I was hoping something in his police record might be helpful. Cody said he’d try, as the unmistakable voice of an unhappy woman rang out in the background.

The Truckee detectives met me in the lobby, and we went next door to a small coffee and pastry joint. They pushed me quite a bit harder than the Nevada County sheriff, but I didn’t give them any names besides Sylvester Bascom. Eventually they left me after I suggested they confer with Detectives Raneswich and Iverson from South Lake Tahoe PD. Surely they’d have more valuable information than I could offer, I said.

The skies were dark and heavy when I called Edward to give him his daily update.

“Tell John Bascom there were three men in the room when Sylvester was murdered. Two are now dead,” I said.

“Wait a minute,” Edward said. I heard the phone moving around and muffled voices.

“Reno, this is John Bascom.” The words boomed through the small speaker. “Tell me what’s happening,” he barked, as if it were an order. I was tempted to say, “Yes, sir,” but I wasn’t in the mood for it. “There were two call girls and three men in Sylvester’s room when he was stabbed,” I said.

“You know this for sure?”

“Yes.”

“What were they doing there? Do you have their names?”

“One of them was Sven Osterlund. He was watching through a peephole in the closet. At this point, I think one of the hookers set up Sylvester to be robbed. But he and Osterlund fought back, and that’s when Sylvester was stabbed. I think Osterlund was shot the next day because he witnessed Sylvester’s murder.”

Bascom was silent for a moment. “My son was killed for what, whatever cash was in his wallet?”

“That’s possible. But there may be more to it.”

“Yes?”

“It’s still conjecture at this point, but drugs and blackmail may be involved.”

“Blackmail? Who was in the room besides Osterlund?”

“The second man was Michael Dean Stiles. He’s the boyfriend of one of the hookers, and he ran me off the road and shot at me last night.”

“He did? Is he the one who stabbed Sylvester?”

“No.”

“But he was there, so let’s bring him to the police as a witness. Where is he?”

“The morgue.”

Bascom didn’t even pause. “Goddammit! You killed him?”

“I was trying to wound him.”

“So what happens now? Do you know who killed my son?”

“No. But I hope to in twenty-four hours.”

“Well, that’s the first decent news I’ve heard. I swear, whoever it is will fry in hell.”

“One way or another, I suppose.”

“Reno, I advise you get a hold of these two incompetents who call themselves detectives. They’re looking for you.”

“Apparently they’re not the only ones,” I said.

• • •

The snow had started falling when I left the hotel. It was still an hour before noon, and I wandered into the empty saloon on the corner to wait for Cody. I was watching the snowfall in silence and sipping a beer when he burst through the doorway.

“What, what? Ha, I didn’t even try your hotel! I knew you’d be at the nearest bar. You drunk!” His voice echoed off the walls. He came up behind me, massaging my neck and shoulders with his huge hands. I lost my balance and almost fell off the barstool.

“Come on, Dirt, cheer up! Do they serve food here? Where the hell is everybody? This place is like a ghost town.”

“You’re looking good, Cody.”

“What? My ass! Have you gone queer? I’m over three hundred again!”

His frame was so big he could gain or lose thirty pounds and not look any different. He sat down next to me. The barstool groaned but held; I’d seen him collapse smaller chairs.

“Things okay back home?” I asked.

“Sure, wonderful. Debbie’s a great wife, as long as I’m not there. I imagine our relationship would be perfect if we got together maybe once a month to screw.”

“Marriage is a tough gig.”

“I’d say it’s a dying institution. You have any luck with the broads lately?”

“Not like the old days,” I said. But then I told him about Beverly Howitt and her involvement in the case.

“You gonna see her again?” he asked.

“Maybe. But first I got to find this Samoan, or whatever he is.”

“Let’s go track him down.”

“Right,” I said. “He wrecked my damn car.”

“So? Your car was a piece of shit anyway.”

“No, it wasn’t.”

“Okay, fine,” Cody said.

“Anyway, I want to try to take him alive. Right?”

“Hey, Dan, this prick shot at you. Let’s go stomp his shit into the tar.”

“Not my job, Cody. I just need to deliver him to collect the bounty.”

“Bounty’s balls. That’s something I could never figure out about you, Dirt. Someone tries to kill you, and you’re nonchalant about it. But I’ve seen guys insult you, and you want to rip them apart with your bare hands.”

“I killed a man last night, Cody.”

“Like that guy whose skull you fractured down in LA,” he said, as if he hadn’t heard me. “Or that dude you sent to the hospital outside of that bar in Gilroy. Remember that time?”