A World the Color of Salt (39 page)

“That's okay,” I said. “I think I have the wrong person.”

I took a packed dirt road around the lake. At times I could go only twenty miles an hour where storm runoff had cut new
rust-colored channels across the road. Several times I thought I was lost. I passed a dead tree up on a low rise, and sitting on it was a golden eagle, eye turned toward whatever morning menu scurried from one hole to another. And then nothing more for many minutes but the bleak landscape of alkali-crusted soil.

At a long curve of road, I came upon a bustle of dust from a lumbering, yellow, older Pontiac ahead of me. Just as down south, you're supposed to pull over when the person behind you doesn't have an Old Fart's license and wants to go more than ten miles an hour.

I was pretty close on his bumper when his brake lights came on, and then he came to a complete stop. He was slouched down, wearing a brimmed hat. It passed through my mind that this was Lionel Crowell, the pseudo-PI again. And then it passed through my mind that whoever it was would get out, pull a pistol, and whack me. Before leaving the motel that morning, I told myself, What if I run into a rattlesnake? I reached for the Colt I'd taken from the trunk and slipped under the seat.

What piled out was a sight I wouldn't have bet a million against a dollar on: Cip Rycken, in a floppy hat, gray shirt, and purple suspenders clamped onto gray pants. My eyes went automatically to his feet, to see what sort of miracle shoes a guy with a fractured metatarsal and phlebitis would wear, and saw thick white socks and brown leather bedroom slippers. In my paranoia, even though this was Cip, the man who'd given me a job when I desperately needed it, who nursed me a few times when I was physically ill and a few when I was emotionally needy, this man might be the man whose turn it was to put me under. Who knew, in this world? I slid my jacket onto my lap from the passenger's seat, over the gun.

He came up, leaned close to the window, and said, “Why don't we just go in one car?”

At that moment I could hear my Bill's voice telling me—the both of us sitting on our bed with the one slat that kept falling down, and me in a literal sweat because I'd scared myself on duty that night, almost blowing away a guy who'd been trailing me the day after we'd testified in court and sent his buddy to
piss ‘n' puke dinners for seven years—Bill telling me, It's all right. Think that way and stay alive. Stay alive. He said that to me again that last night in the hospital, his forehead a mass of clear bubbles. It was just after I thought the fever'd broken. I thought, Oh, boy, we're on the way up, here. I was tipping the water pitcher, which was filled with ice, to wet the washcloth I would put on his head, when he called me in a whisper to come—it's what he said: “Come.” I had both hands on his shoulders and I was leaning over him, willing him to be all right. He said, “Smokey.” Yes, yes, I said. He said, “You stay alive.” And then the pupils of his eyes widened until there was barely any retina left.

I followed Cipriano until we came to a turnout, and as he was climbing in with me, I nudged the Colt I'd returned to the floor back underneath the seat with my heel because it had drifted forward. His eyes flicked to it and then up to my face.

“You think we'll see bison, dearie?”

I smiled, and pulled away, glad he was with me. The sun was out, and the sky was clear, and the air just the right amount of cold.

We started out again in this drear land and I said, “You sure you're not taking me somewhere to have your way with me, Cipriano?”

He said, “This stick hasn't dipped for a long time, Smokey, but thanks for the thought anyway.”

He offered me a piece of cinnamon gum. Its sweet smell reaching me, I recalled the smell of my home in San Jose where I'd gone after leaving Cipriano's employ and before becoming a grocery-store checker. In that rented bungalow, I'd stashed bundles of cinnamon sticks in closets and drawers. Cinnamon must have been in that year. When I smelled that fragrance, I felt a loss at who that girl was, the one who had wanted to settle down and study painting and wildlife and wound up probing dead bodies.

I said, “Tell me what you know about Ralph Polk.”

“Ralph's been stuck out here a long time, long before this oil thing came up. I'm beginning to think he's gone a little round the bend.”

“Does he have any kind of criminal record?”

“Ralphie? Naw-w.”

“By the way, how'd you spring yourself from the rest home?”

“Walked out the door. Got tired of restin'. Hey . . .”

“What?”

“How come you don't smile anymore?”

“Whose life do you have to make miserable when I'm not around?” I said.

We were into hillier terrain now. There were a few Joshua trees and creosote bushes, and the earth was striped with rust and gold and gaining a few patches of green.

“Who would ever think you could put a lake on top of this land and it would stay there?” I said.

“You know where we are now? We're southwest of Mica Peak. You can go across these hills and see shards of mica laying in the gullies like kids been down there breaking bottles.”

We sank into a wide wash, rounded the hill to the far side, and arrived at a sickle-shaped cut in a low cliff face. Nested in the cavity was a white-and-tan motor home. Off to one side were two goats behind a wire-and-wood fence, idly sweeping up alfalfa. Our tire noise did not keep the goats from their appointed munching, though they did raise their heads and stare with wary eyes.

On the other side of the goat pen sat a long, flat-roofed plywood shed. I saw no Bronco. I saw no other vehicle of any kind. I cut the ignition and we both just sat there, staring ahead.

“Cip, I'd better tell you something else about my friend Patricia. She was seeing a guy who'd been in the jug for robberies.”

“If you threw a stick in a prayer meeting, you'd hit a couple with some history,” he said. “What's a girl to do?”

“That's a little tough for me to buy into.”

“You always were a hard-nose,” he said.

“I don't know how you can say that.”

“The other girls never gave a shit.”

“What about Frazier? She did.”

“Yeah, she did. She was different, like you.”

“Listen, Cip—I'm pretty sure one of the guys helping Ralph
out is her guy. And this guy's brother, Phillip, is bad news too. These are not reformed people.”

“Seems to me you don't even know for sure these people are the ones you're lookin' for.”

“You're right. I don't. What would
you
do if you thought a friend sent you that postcard, and the postcard traced to here? What would you do?”

“I'd wait for another postcard.”

“Fine. Well, that's not me.”

He reached over and patted my hand and smiled at me.

I sighed and said, “So, what do we do, walk up and ring the bell like the Avon lady?”

After thinking about this awhile and looking out the window toward the fence and the goats, he said, “Ralph Polk never did have any sense.”

“I saw Phillip last night. In the bar. He was with someone, a pretty girl from Phoenix named Constance, and it seemed, you know, okay. I'm not saying I have this figured out. I could be wrong all the way to Minnesota. You follow me?”

He nodded, thoughtful.

I said, “It doesn't look like anyone's here.”

“The old lady's in there,” he said.

I'd forgotten about the mother. “How do you know?”

“Ralph told me. He said she don't do nothin' all day but sit and smell up the place. He's not too happy she comes along with the deal.”

“They can't all live in there.” I was estimating the length of the trailer at maybe thirty feet, then assumed the shed wasn't just an equipment shed but a domicile as well.

I'd seen plenty of living arrangements like that when I was in Oakland. There'd be a shack with a slanted roof attached to a backyard fence, the height no greater than a Doberman, yet some lanky tweak would come unfolding out from it, three of us yelling and waving big bad police specials at him. They can get in tiny places. I was after one jerk once, saw his hind end and sneakers go out the bedroom window. My partner looped him back into the house. We were all over that place for an hour. The rest of the family was huddled in the living room under watch of another badge, two preteen sisters sitting on the couch with their mother, sniffling, and the badge
trying to ask them about school to divert their attention. I could not believe we couldn't find him. I mirrored the attic space twice, finally crawling up there myself with my flashlight and gun, feeling very exposed the whole time, finding nothing but rat shit and spider webs. I looked under every bed twice. Ready to open the dresser drawers and look for him, I walked out on the back porch and saw a refrigerator about five feet high, the enamel worn off the edges. Something made me go over to it and open the door. There he was, one little raggedy-ass wimp we put away for, unfortunately, only five for murder and CCE—continuing criminal enterprise—and the tweak smiled at me and spit. It caught me under the chin. He was lucky he had an intact forehead when he walked out of there, but he did have one or two stretched finger tendons from application of our own brand of pain compliance. That, as I explained once before, was not the real me. That was someone named John Wayne.

We got out of the car and went up to the trailer. Cipriano knocked.

The door opened immediately,
wham!
slapping on the trailer skin, making me jump. What I saw then is hard to describe because I don't think most people would believe me. This thing stood before us, about six feet tall, two-fifty. It wore baggy khaki pants and red bootie-type slippers with leather soles. It wore a tan shirt with short sleeves. And running down the length of the arm that held back the screen door were lakes of oozy red and pus-filled lesions. Her face was tinged a sort of orange and there were brown circles under the eyes; the eyes blue, the eyebrows yellow. Brown curls jutted out under her ears like boar horns. The thing spoke. It had no teeth.

“Who you lookin' for, bub?” it said.

Who you lookin' for, in a female voice. This was Annie Dugdale.

Cipriano's posture changed. He grew taller. His voice grew younger traveling the distance between where we stood and the trailer door. When he removed his hat, his dark hair sprung out like foam. He said, “We're wondering if you have a gallon of water.” Smiling at Annie Dugdale with the kind of twinkly eyes he reserved for his best girls. “These kids,” meaning me, “don't know how to take care of cars no more.”

She went back inside and brought out a white bleach bottle without the label, dark smudges around the neck.

“Oh, we can't take that.” I'm thinking, Why not?, when he adds: “That's your drinking water.”

She said, “Go on and take it. There's more where that came from.”

He stepped forward and took it from her, thanking her, and then put his hat back on and touched his fìnger to the brim.

She said, “You want some coffee? I just made a pot.”

We went inside. I had the same cramped feeling I'd had in Mr. Polk's other trailer, only this was worse. Things were crammed deeply into the compartment above the driving area. Latches to the overhead cabinets were unlatched, and half of a potholder leaked out from one. On all the flat surfaces, including the stove, were coffee cans and salt-and-pepper shakers and casino ashtrays and decks of cards, along with a TV guide and a paperback book whose cover was off, and another one whose cover I could see, by Michener. Part of the claustrophobia came from watching Annie, the top of her head just inches away from brushing the ceiling.

We sat on the bench at the table, watching the giant woman get mugs and pour. I looked for resemblances. This didn't look like it could be the mother of Phillip and Roland; both of them were decent-looking.

She said, “You take sugar?”

I shook my head no, and Cipriano said, “Please.”

Annie said, “I got sweetener.”

“That's just fine,” he said.

She returned with the mugs, squeezing in behind the table. The lips that guarded no teeth looked like the pale underbelly of a fish. Above them there was a shadow of brown mustache, and along the side of her face where the light hit, a sandy forest of hair. The yellow eyebrows, I guessed, came naturally.

I saw Cipriano's eyelids drop briefly, his gaze taking in the graveyard of Annie's crusty arms. When I looked again at her, her eyes were set on mine.

She said to Cipriano: “What are you doing out this way? Prospecting?”

“I know Ralph Polk.”

“You do, huh?” She held her cup of coffee with both hands, completely obliterating it.

Cipriano said, tearing the packet of sweetener, then stirring the coffee with a tablespoon she'd brought him, “Maybe he's got some oil out here, what do you think? Think maybe we can pull up some money from this old parking lot?”