Big Maria (16 page)

“Thousand bucks. That’s what it’ll cost for me to help you find your gilded fucker.”

“Flicker. I ain’t paying that much. A hundred fifty. To map out a trail.”

“Five hundred. But I can’t guarantee that shit ain’t changed. Been like twenty years. Could be the trails are gone. Could be I send you into the middle of a patrol. Get you more lost than you would be. Or I walk you into a minefield. All I’m saying is: you die, it’s not on me.”

“I’ll take my chances. Two hundred bucks.”

“Three fifty.”

“Two sixty-five.”

“Two seventy-five. Up front.”

“Deal.”

T
here’s no such thing as a born liar. Although Harry was pretty sure he had met a few women that came close. A good liar was the product of experience and craft, like any true artist. Execution and performance were integral, but it was the construction of the narrative that was the make-or-break. That’s where Harry shined. He did his homework.

As he had dug up information about bird-watching, he reminded himself of the components of a good lie: keep your facts straight, details add realism, less is more, truth is stranger than fiction, add a touch of absurdity, you have to believe it yourself.

Nothing helped the success of a lie more than the other person wanting to believe. It could be because they were as gullible as a Mississippi prom queen. Or greedier than an old millionaire’s teenage fiancée. But most people believed lies out of sheer laziness. It was easier to believe a person than to challenge them.

Cooker had doubted him at first. But by making Cooker think that Harry was holding back, when Harry finally gave him the “truth,” Cooker was primed to believe. Cooker wasn’t any different than the other prisoners at Chuckawalla. Another poor, dumb convict.

After Harry gave him the cash, Cooker mapped out the path through the Proving Ground. He had admitted that some of the terrain was unfamiliar, just guesswork, but the trail wasn’t that different from what Harry had got from his own best guesses and Google satellite images. It was a strong second vote and cheap for the price.

Harry headed back to Blythe with a rough plan, a preliminary trail map, and a definite destination. And Cooker was none the wiser. Probably forgot about the whole thing as soon as the money got him high.

C
ooker didn’t believe a fucking word that Shitburger had said. He hadn’t trusted the hacks inside, he sure as fuck wasn’t going to start now. Bird-watching, his hairy, misshapen ass. Dumbshit couldn’t lie worth a damn. Just the same, he was pretty sure Shitburger wasn’t no terrorist neither. Whatever his angle was—maybe arms theft and sales—Cooker smelled money. He had two hundred and seventy-five in his pocket. And if Shitburger was handing out three-bills-minus that easy, there was more at the end of that motherfucking rainbow.

Cooker worked the grill on autopilot, cooking up Scrams and Slams, sandwiches, and burgers until the end of his shift. He couldn’t stop thinking about the money in his pocket and that map of the Chocolate Mountains.

He hadn’t told Harry that during his time at the Proving Ground, he had spent most it gacked out at the Laguna Airfield. Fact was, Cooker couldn’t remember shit-all from when he trained there. He did know that the area Shitburger was interested in was nothing but rock. What could be out there?

When Cooker clocked out, instead of heading back to the windowless room he rented in Yuma, he went to the small bookstore in town. Browsing the aisles, he found a map of the area. He stared at the wavy lines depicting the elevations of the Chocolate Mountains, tapping his finger on the spot that Shitburger was trying to reach.

He asked the girly dude at the counter for a phone book, but as soon as it was in his hands, he realized he was in the wrong county. He had nothing else to do, so he got on his hog.

It took Cooker a half hour to find a pay phone once he got to Blythe. Motherfucking cell phones, he thought. Some of us still use dimes. He flipped through the hanging phone book, avoiding the pages that looked like someone had wiped their ass on them. There was only one Schmittberger listed. He memorized the address, but to be double sure, he tore out the page and stuffed it in his pocket.

R
icky waited for the little biker to finish using the phone. Other than a bank over at the truck stop, it was the only pay phone in Blythe. That made it extremely popular, often with a line three or four deep. The worst was when you got behind a guy using all his calling-card minutes to talk to every one of his relatives back in Mexico.

The biker wasn’t even using the phone, just reading the phone book, but he had been there first and Ricky wasn’t in any hurry. Besides, the guy had that look. One of those little dogs that thinks he’s a big dog.

After the guy ripped out a page, he turned, gave Ricky a tough-guy nod, and walked to his motorcycle. Ricky was glad he hadn’t rushed him. He wasn’t physically imposing in any way—Ricky probably had eighty pounds on him—but there was something about the confident way he carried himself.

Ricky punched in the first three numbers, but stopped when the biker’s motorcycle roared to life, massacring the silence in a fifteen-block radius. Ricky waited until the engine had faded in the distance and then slowly pressed the rest of the buttons, reading the numbers off the torn piece of paper in his hand. The electronic tone rang in his ear.

“Hello,” a female voice crackled.

“Hi, Anna. Is Flavia there?”

There was a long silence, then an exasperated “Just a minute.”

It was more than a minute. Ricky fed a handful of coins into the pay phone.

“Ricky?” Flavia’s voice surprised him. She sounded happy to hear from him.

“Hey, baby.”

“How are you doing, Ricky? Everything okay?”

“Yeah, nothing wrong. Other than you’re there and I’m here. I miss you. I miss the Rose.”

“We miss you, too.”

“I’m not drinking no more. I’m on a good path. Figuring things out. Believing.”

“That’s good, Ricky.”

“I ain’t pressing. I have to earn it. I have to fix what I broke. I know that.”

Flavia kept silent.

“I’m doing what I can to make things right. I’m working hard. I got a plan. And faith. It’s going to take time, but I’m getting everything back to the way it was. Better even.”

“That’s good, Ricky. That sounds really good.”

“I don’t expect anything all at once. You’ve seen me at my worst. Leaving was the only thing you could have done. I want to see the both of you soon. When you say it’s okay. Just wanted to call, let you know that I’m trying. That I ain’t given up.”

Ricky hadn’t realized it, but he had started crying.

“That’s good, Ricky.” He could hear the tears in her voice as well.

“Is Rosie there? Can I talk to her?”

“She’s out with a friend.”

“Tell her I love her. Tell her for me, okay?”

“She knows, but I’ll tell her. I’ll tell her twice.”

“I love you, Flav.”

“I know. I wish that was all it took. I love you, too.”

“Can I call again? Is it okay for me to call like this?”

“Any time, Ricky. I want you to. It sounds like you’re trying. No reason I shouldn’t try, too.”

“I really screwed up, didn’t I?”

“Isn’t nothing that’s broken so bad it can’t be glued back together. I got to go, Ricky. Anna’s calling me. But I want to talk soon. I want to know you’re okay. I love you.”

Flavia hung up. Ricky set the receiver back in the cradle and wiped his nose with his sleeve. He dug his finger in the coin return, found a nickel, and put it in his pocket. He started the slow walk back to his gutted trailer with a smile on his face.

F
rank couldn’t sleep. He thought a nap would give him energy, but he ended up staring at the ceiling. Getting up from the bed in his daughter’s house, he felt disoriented and lost. Nothing felt right. Something was off.

He felt hot. His stomach hurt. He needed water. The inside of his cheeks stuck to his teeth. He might puke. Not even halfway to the kitchen, he needed a rest. His ribs felt like they were being squeezed. He thought about calling for help but detested the idea of not being able to do it himself. Defiantly, he made it to the kitchen, dragging his shoulder along the wall and disrupting a framed family photo. He shakily poured a glass of water. Something was screwy inside his body. He shook with chills. He didn’t want to bother Mercedes. He wanted to wait, let it pass, see how he felt in a bit.

The water didn’t help, most of it coughed back into the sink.

His hand seized and his arm burned with pain. Oh, shit, he thought. I know what this is. He tried to yell, but all that came out was a gurgling sound. He dropped the glass with a loud crash as he fell to the floor clutching his chest.

F
rank woke up in the back of an ambulance soaked in sweat and ready to fight. The ambulance guy leaned over him adjusting the oxygen mask. Frank weakly reached to pull it away. With no effort, the guy set Frank’s arm back at his side. The man’s voice was gentle, like a cartoon bear.

“You’re wondering what happened, where you are. You’re in an ambulance that is on its way to Palo Verde Hospital. You had an episode.”

An episode? What the hell did that mean? He had finished his chemo with a clean bill of health. Cancer wasn’t an ambulance thing anyhow. It was more of a kill-you-slowly kind of deal. Then Frank remembered the chest pain.

The bear continued. “A cardiac episode that appears to have corrected itself. However, you needed to be resuscitated, so we’re bringing you in for tests. We would have taken you to Parker Indian, but your daughter insisted we drive you to Blythe, where you’ve been receiving treatment. She was very insistent. In fact, your daughter scared the hell out of Tommy and me.”

The guy smiled, trying to communicate that he was joking, but Frank knew he wasn’t. Mercedes scared everyone.

“You are doing very well. Your vitals are good and you’re in excellent hands. Lie back, get some rest, and try to relax. That’s the best thing for you.”

Frank stared at the ceiling of the ambulance. Small lights and locked shelves lined the interior wall. The kid was nice enough, but Frank wasn’t going to take his advice. He knew if he closed his eyes, he might not open them again. It was a matter of will. It was on him. At that precise moment, Frank decided not to die yet. And as long as he did the work, he would continue to live.

H
arry set the last letter down on the table. It rested among small confetti chips that had flaked from the edges of the thin pages. Each one of Abraham Constance’s wife’s letters was a tale of tragedy: a dead kid, a poor investment, a fire. And the final insult, his wife informing him that she was leaving him for his own brother.

Despite what he knew about Constance, Harry couldn’t help but feel sorry for the guy. From all evidence, he was a kindred spirit. Another poor chump who had never seen nothing but the short end of the stick. Of course, he had killed who knew how many times for the gold. What was Constance supposed to do? The gold was his chance to balance out the awful.

He looked to the cabinet under the sink. Sorry, Abe.

Harry brushed the paper chips onto the floor with his forearm, tied the letters with the old string, and picked up Abraham Constance’s journal for a second read. He appreciated the man’s all-business approach and penmanship. At points it felt like the words had been written directly to Harry.

From what Harry deciphered, there were roughly sixty pounds of gold unaccounted for at the time of Constance’s death. From the simple system used to keep track of the mining operation, Harry gleaned that the gold had been sacked but never exchanged. It could have been bad bookkeeping, but to that point the balance sheets balanced.

After reading the journals and letters, Harry felt like he knew a little bit about Abraham Constance the man. He may have been overconfident, but he wasn’t careless. That was too much gold to
have sitting around. The only place to safely stow it would have been at the mine. Only a few knew the location, and that knowledge was what sent Constance on his killing spree.

Harry was sure of it. There were sixty pounds of gold sitting in the Big Maria Mine. Sixty pounds. Nine hundred sixty ounces. Sitting there. Waiting for Harry. Calling to him.

Could it be that easy? Follow the rainbow and find the pot of gold? Of course not. Nothing in life was magically delicious. At least not for Harry. He would have to traverse minefields and artillery ranges. The way Harry figured it, if they miraculously reached the Big Maria Mine both undetected and unharmed, it would only be fair that there would be bags of gold waiting for them.

It relieved Harry that they wouldn’t have to do any mining. Prospecting had been entirely unrealistic. His only experience with gold mining was the time he had panned for gold at a kiosk in Knott’s Berry Farm when he was a kid. The yield had been minimal, a few flakes. A pie tin wasn’t going to cut it for this trip.

J
ust because a person grew up in the desert didn’t mean they liked the heat. It just meant that they were too stupid to move to a place where people were meant to live.

Cooker had found shade, but it was still hot as a fresh shit. And boring as fuck. Nothing happened as he watched Shitburger’s trailer. Cooker had run out of cigarettes about an hour into watching and now he was jonesing. It was only two blocks to the Circle K, but he had committed. He could hold out, but it pissed him off.

He spat a thick white wad onto the ground. The inside of his mouth was cotton-dry, his lips chapped. His throat scratched and he couldn’t stop swallowing. Fifteen more minutes and he’d have to take a break or pass out from thirst. He licked the sweat off his arm to feel the wetness. The salt burned his tongue.

Finally, Shitburger’s door swung open and the fat fuck slowly maneuvered down the wooden steps. The cast on his leg gave
him a comical hobble. Once on flat ground, Shitburger used his crutches and slowly made his way down the dirt road out of the trailer park. Cooker hadn’t bothered to duck for cover, as Shitburger was forced to keep his head down to concentrate on each step.