The Last Town (Book 2): Preparing For The Dead (3 page)

“What’ve you got for me, Reese?” she asked, looking more at Narvaez than him.

“Meet Captain Bobby Narvaez, California Army National Guard. Captain, this is Captain Two Miriam Pallata, second in command of the Hollywood Division,” Reese said, getting the introductions out of the way.

“Ma’am,” Narvaez said, sticking out his right hand.

“Hello, Captain—thanks for coming in,” Pallata said, shaking his hand. She looked at Plosser, standing behind Narvaez. “And who’s this?”

“First Sergeant Dean Plosser, my senior noncommissioned officer,” Narvaez said.

“First Sergeant, how do you do,” Pallata said, shaking hands with him as well.

“Pleased to meet you, ma’am,” Plosser said, and Reese saw he did a full visual surveillance routine of Pallata’s rack. He tried not to roll his eyes.

“Seems that Narvaez is bringing in an entire company with him, not just a dozen or so troops like we thought,” Reese said. “We’ll need to know what to do with them.”

“How many men, Captain?” Pallata asked.

“Just under a hundred,” Narvaez told her. “We were plussed up at the last moment, seems that the AG wants to surge as many troops into the Los Angeles basin as possible, and we were the designated team for your district.”

“AG?” Pallata asked. “The only AGs I know of are attorney generals.”

“Adjutant General in this case, ma’am. The ranking member of the California Army National Guard. A two-star named Braden,” Narvaez explained.

“We need to know what to do with these guys,” Reese said, steering the conversation back on track. “We didn’t know so many were coming, and we need to figure out where to put them.”

“Well, we unfortunately don’t have room here,” Pallata said. “You could muster here, Captain Narvaez, but as far as accommodations go—”

“I was actually thinking about that on the way in, ma’am. I’m presuming there’s no hotels nearby that we could take over, so I was thinking we could just camp out in the garage. Thing is, we’d need latrine resources, as we don’t have anything with us other than personal sanitation gear,” Narvaez said.

“So all you need are shitters, and you’re messed up by not having any,” Pallata said, and Reese smiled inside. Old Miriam was still sharp as a tack.

“Basically, yes,” Narvaez said. “We can get latrine resources allocated to us, but we need to know where to put them, and we need to know when. It seems like the parking garage is good enough for the moment, but we need authorization to set up there.”

“I get it, Captain. I know who to call. How long will it take to get whatever you need brought in? We’ll make sure you have the space allocated. It’s not like anyone’s going to be using the parking garage right now, anyway.”

“A couple of days, maybe,” Narvaez said. “That kind of stuff isn’t exactly part of our normal load-out on this mission. A lot of logistical supplies are still in the rear area, waiting for deployment.”

“Well, you can use our facilities here for as long as you need them,” Pallata said. “We’ll handle the conflicts as they arise. Reese, can you see to that?”

“Sure,” Reese said.

“Captain, when will the rest of your men arrive?” Pallata asked.

“Inbound now, might even be at the garage already,” Narvaez said. “Logistics aside, do you have a mission for us yet, ma’am?”

Pallata nodded. “Absolutely. We need to keep Cedars-Sinai operational. We have a good number of our patrol officers there for security. Can your guys take over?”

“We can do that,” Narvaez said. “You envision us just keeping the peace, or …?”

“More like ‘or’ at the moment,” Pallata said. “Right now, all the area hospitals are busy. Cedar is getting busy as hell, lots of injuries coming in. And, uh, lots of zombies.” She shook her head. “Zombies … can’t believe I just said that.”

“Yeah, things are a bit different these days, ma’am,” Plosser added.

“So ma’am, I need some more guidance on this,” Narvaez said. “Are we to secure the hospital and use force to ensure it stays that way, or are we just making our presence known? A lot of my guys have combat experience, and more than a few are police officers from other jurisdictions and municipalities, so keeping the peace won’t be a big stretch for us. But we need to know what you envision us doing if things get hot. Because from the looks of things”—here, the Guard officer turned and pointed at the monitors on the wall—“it looks like hot is going to be the average temperature soon.”

“Do what you have to in order to keep the hospital operational,” Pallata said. “I don’t see you opening up on civilians, but if that means you have to shoot some zombies, you do it.”

Narvaez looked back at Plosser. “First Sergeant?”

Plosser nodded. “I’m good to go on that, sir.”

Narvaez turned back to Pallata. “We’ll have liaisons on-site, correct?”

Pallata looked at Reese. “Go with them, Detective. You’re our point man.”

Awesome
, Reese thought.

“S
o, are you
going to be working at the film festival?” Suzy asked, looking over her plate of spaghetti. Her deep, dark eyes locked onto Mike Hailey’s blue gaze and demanded his complete attention. Since the only thing that competed with her was his bacon cheeseburger, she won, hands down. But then and again, she always did, as far as Hailey was concerned.

“I am,” he said. “I’m still the low man on the totem pole, so I get all the scut jobs.” As the newest patrolman to join Single Tree’s small police force, Hailey had to work all the thankless jobs, such as traffic control during the annual film festival held in Single Tree. In years past, it had never been that big of an affair, but as more Hollywood talent found their way to the desert hamlet, the event was beginning to grow. It was one of the town’s biggest attractions during the fall, and Hailey had already been nominated for the job.

Suzy smiled and pouted her lips. “Poor boy,” she said, with a light laugh. Hailey laughed back, and she reached across the table and touched his hand. “Don’t worry, I’ll come and keep you company … in between watching movies.”

“How sweet of you,” Hailey said. “You already have tickets?”

“The tribe gets a couple dozen, and I just happen to have two,” Suzy said, squeezing his hand again before leaning back in her chair. “Victor gave them to me. He told me to take you, if you weren’t working.”

Hailey raised his brows. “Victor told you to take
me
?” Suzy Kuruk was the tribal leader’s niece, and also one of his subordinates. Hailey had nothing against Victor, who was pretty much a decent enough guy, even though he played the stoic Native American part to the hilt. But that he would be suggesting his twenty-year-old niece cavort with a white man from Single Tree seemed out of character for him.

Suzy straightened the collar on her khaki reservation police uniform. “He likes you,” she told him. “He thinks you’re respectful toward him, not like some of the other town cops. He appreciates that.”

Hailey felt his brow furrow, as if of its own accord. “Why wouldn’t anyone be respectful toward your uncle? He’s the leader of the tribe, and also the head of the reservation police.”

Suzy shrugged. “Your chief always treats him like a civilian, not like a police officer. So do a lot of other guys, like Whitter and, ah, what’s the tall guy’s name? Santoro?”

“Yeah, Wilbur Santoro. I can see why Victor doesn’t like him, he really
is
a dick.” Hailey looked up as Danielle Kennedy approached their table. She walked almost without a limp now, he saw, courtesy of the new prosthetic leg she wore. She was a few years older than he was, had graduated from high school and gone off to join the Marines while he was still in middle school. His only real memories of her from his youth was when she babysat him and his brother. One night, she’d allowed him to stay up with her and watch
Halloween
on cable, which had terrified him so badly that he hadn’t been able to sleep all night. Just the same, he never told his parents, for they would have been angry that their nine-year-old boy had been subjected to such fare.

“How are the lovebirds doing?” Danielle asked, smiling down at them. “Everything all right? Mike, you want another Coke?” She pointed at his almost-empty glass.

“I’m fine, thanks,” he said.

“Not eating much of your cheeseburger,” Danielle noted. “Does it taste worse than usual, or is Suzy spending too much time flirting with you across the table?”

“I don’t flirt,” Suzy said, smiling. “I only arouse.”

Danielle laughed. “Okay, I’m going to leave that one alone—”

Hailey’s radio chirped, and he reached for it with a scowl. “Sorry,” he said to the two women.

“Hey, I’m cool with it,” Danielle said. “How about you, arouser?”

Suzy shrugged as she loaded up a fork with spaghetti. “It is what it is,” she said.

*

Four minutes later,
Hailey was pulling a department Excursion to the curb in front of Single Tree Pharmacy, the town’s only full-service drugstore. The owner, Hector Aguilar, was standing out front with a trio of lanky, dark-skinned teenage Indian boys. The boys looked downcast and sullen, while Aguilar looked pissed off, which wasn’t unusual. Aguilar was one of the bitterest individuals Hailey knew, an expert at alienating almost everyone in the town. He wore a white pharmacist’s smock over his street clothes, and his thick-rimmed glasses were perched on the tip of his narrow nose. He was a short, portly individual who always seemed to be on the verge of exploding into a flop sweat.

“I want these boys arrested!” Aguilar snapped as soon as Hailey stepped out of the SUV.

“On what charge, sir?” he asked.

“Theft!” Aguilar held up several magazines in his hand. “They were walking out of the store with these!”

Hailey sighed and took the magazines from Aguilar.
Playboy
,
Penthouse
, and
Hustler
, one issue each. He looked at the three boys, the oldest of which was maybe thirteen. None of them would meet his eye. Hailey had to fight not to smile.

“Still no Internet at the reservation, boys?” he asked, good-naturedly.

“This is
not
funny,” Aguilar barked. “They were on their way out of the store with goods they hadn’t paid for, not to mention they were in possession of age-restricted items!”

“Boys? Is this true?” Hailey asked.

The three boys looked at each other, and the eldest made a noncommittal noise that could have been affirmation, denial, or something in between. Hailey fought not to smile once again.

“Well?” Aguilar said. “Aren’t you going to read them their rights, or something?”

Hailey handed the magazines back to the drugstore owner. “You really want me to arrest these kids, Mister Aguilar?”

“Absolutely!” Aguilar almost shouted. “Theft is a serious crime!”

“We were still in the store,” the oldest boy said softly.

“What was that?” Hailey asked.

The oldest boy looked up. “We were still in the store,” he said again. “We hadn’t left yet.”

“Oh, really?” Hailey looked at Aguilar. “Sir, did these boys leave the premises with your property?”

“They were headed for the door when I stopped them,” Aguilar said, as if talking to an idiot.

“Sir, were they still in the store when you stopped them?” Hailey asked again.

“What difference does that make? Intent is intent!”

“Yeah, okay,” Hailey said. He motioned the boys toward the Excursion. “I’ll take it from here.”

“Don’t you want to take my report?” Aguilar asked.

“I’ve got what I need,” Hailey said, “and you have your merchandise. Right?”

“Yes, but—”

“I’ve got it, sir. The department will be in touch.” Hailey turned and led the boys to the SUV, then pulled open the rear door. “Climb in, guys,” he said.

“I want them prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law!” Aguilar said. “To the fullest! Do you understand me?”

“That’s up to the Inyo County prosecutor, but I’ll pass that on,” Hailey said. “I’ll copy you on the paperwork, Mister Aguilar. Don’t worry about that.”

“I’ll be following up with your chief,” Aguilar said, a menacing tone in his voice. “Just to let you know.”