Crystal Meth Cowboys (4 page)

The left headlight picked up a basketball-sized brown clump on the road dead ahead. Bell had never been a great student. But he had an acute, visceral understanding of mechanical physics. He knew that, at 80 miles per hour, approximately 200 feet from an axle-high obstruction, he had to stay off the brake or risk bringing the back end around and careening down the mountainside. He briefly considered executing a radical right turn into a sideways slide but, in the instant before impact, he judged the obstruction to be more dirt than rock.

Wes reached out for a handhold to brace his upper body. His right hand found sticky duct tape that patched the torn vinyl of the passenger's door arm rest.

"Ohhhhhh Mama!" crowed Bell as the Firebird's bumper sheared thick, wet mud off the clump in the road and the front axle whistled over it at 60 mph. He tromped on the accelerator. The four barrel quadrajet inhaled a heady mixture of oxygen and octane, the eight Bosch platinum plugs fired the eight custom-bore cylinders and the Firebird leapt off its back wheels and rocketed up the road.

Wes released his death grip on the arm rest. Bell raised the bottle of Corona from between his legs to between his lips, accelerated into the final turn, eased up on the straightaway and squealed into a neon beer-sign-lit oasis at the crest of the hill.

The Deer Lick Inn slouched on a snug two acre mesa. A low slung crescent moon limned the peaks of neighboring foothills in the pearlescent sheen of a just-healed flesh wound. Along the front of the parking lot, parallel to a hitching post, stood half a dozen chopped-down Harleys. Two four-wheel drive vehicles and a late model Camaro were parked on the other side of the lot. Bell pulled in next to the Chevy.

They climbed out of the Firebird. Wes arched his back, hands on his hips. The sky was clear as etched glass. The blue-black firmament rained down starlight, Venus glowed like an amber traffic lamp and the Milky Way was so close it looked like a fog bank.

Bell buttoned his baggy dress shirt, blousing the shirtail over his gun butt. Wes zipped up his pre-stressed leather jacket and tried to match Bell's long strides to the front steps. Bell clonked up the stair planks in old combat boots, thudded his heels on the loose boards of the short porch and paused at the swinging doors. Wes followed silently in his Reeboks.

"I love this part," said Bell just before he swaggered through the swinging doors. Wes caught the doors' backswing on his forearms and slipped inside.

They entered a deep room, its peaked ceiling braced with rough-hewn beams. The bar stood to the left, raised two steps above a lounge area known as the pit. Middle-aged bikers sprawled around on everything from an overstuffed sofa to a bucket seat from a late 60's muscle car. Two of them played darts. They all looked up at the new arrivals.

On the drive back to the PD, Bell had speculated that the naked man was a speed-dealing biker who sampled a little too much of his own product. They had found a vintage Harley in a corner of the parking lot with sand pits on the fender paint. Bell said that speed labs were often located in the desert, run by biker gangs out of San Berdoo. The naked man was probably in town to drop a load.

They learned later that Cyril Reese had recovered a set of works and a sixteen ounce freezer bag of uncut methamphetamine in the bedroom closet of room #12. The Harley was registered to Robert R. Bjornstedt of San Bernadino, California.

Bell led Wes up to the bar, past an old 49ers' schedule tacked to the pine paneling between the neon beer signs buzzing in the windows. The mirror behind the bar was starred with green oxidation stains. A meaty aroma led Lyedecker's eyes to a crock pot behind the bar.

Bell plunked himself down on a stool and affected a BBC accent. "Cosmo, my good fellow. I should like a Stolichnaya martini, straight up, one olive.
Vedy
dry."

Wes was surprised by the barkeep. He had expected a hulking brute with tufts of hair in his ears. But Cosmo was short and frail, his wispy silver hair parted in the middle and combed back on both sides. He wore a white serving jacket, a string tie and thick horn-rim glasses. He fixed Wes Lyedecker with an enormous stare. "Uh, make it two," said Wes, laying a ten on the bar.

Bell leaned on his elbows wearily. "It's murder out there, Cosmo. Serious murder."

Cosmo reached down to the freezer below the bar. "You fuckin' fuzz, you're unbelievable," he said, plunking a frosty liter of Stoli on the unvarnished oak. Wes detected a lilt of Irish in his speech, and the hard vowels of New York City.

"You're on the edge, you're stressed out. You're this, you're that. As if I give a flamin' shit in hell." Cosmo poured a lethal dose of icy vodka into two conical glasses. "You could get out if you don't like it." He stabbed two plump olives with two tiny plastic swords. "Garbagemen in New York makin' 60 thou a year. Good for them." He drizzled one drop of dry vermouth over the two olives. "They yoosta come stumblin' in after work and say, moanin', the garbagemen moanin', 'Ohhh, I had such a tough day.' Who the fuck cares? That's what you're gettin' paid for!" Cosmo plopped the two olives in the two martini glasses and slid them across. "I never did go home to my wife and say I had a bad day. Never once in 36 blessed fucking years did I go home and say that."

Bell lifted the goblet to his lips and sipped the crystal liquid as if trilling a '48 Bordeaux. He set the glass down gently. "Cosmo, you're a god."

Cosmo locked his fish-bowl gaze on Lyedecker. Wes took a quick gulp, nodded and said "Mmmmm" though it felt like his mouth was full of lighter fluid. Cosmo returned to his stool under the mirror and folded his arms.

"Shitforbrains!" called Bell to Renaldo Alarcon, who was down at the end of the bar debating jukebox selections with Jake Hansey and a gigantic rotund man of indeterminate age.

"Dickcheese!" called Renaldo, a young Hispanic with a square body and a round face. "I hear you been a
muy malo
motherfucker, mang."

Bell sipped his martini.

Renaldo sauntered the length of the bar. He cocked his head and leaned in. "Chu gotta stop chooting all dese peeples, mang." Renaldo dropped the accent and lowered his voice. "Try
cuffing
them."

Bell's eyelids drooped about a millimeter. "Renaldo," he said, "Your mother is a whore for donkeys."

Renaldo grabbed one of the tiny plastic swords off the bar and brandished it at Bell. "Fu chu, mang. I cut chu. I cut chu up, down, deep and repeatedly, mang," said Renaldo, thrusting the plastic sword into Bell's gut. Bell giggled and swatted at him with long white mitts.

Wes looked up from these hijinx. The head of a young buck was mounted in the top right corner of the wall behind the bar, his neck twisted toward the adjoining wall, toward the pert rear end of a white tail deer. The buck's leathery tongue protruded a great distance from his mouth. Wes chuckled. The Deer Lick Inn.

"Those your diapers they found in the PD trashcan, Little Jim?," said Bell to the gigantic man, who now stood next to Renaldo, the skeletal Jake Hansey bobbing behind him like a pilot fish. He was referring to a recent apoplectic memo from the Chief, re: 'sanitary conditions'. "I know it's a long way down that hall to the bathroom."

"I thought Depends was your brand, Bell."

"Hey, what can I tell ya," said Bell. "It just feels so good to let go."

Their laughter reminded Wes of sports commentators on TV. There seemed to be such an easy camaraderie among men of a certain age. Wes met his reflection in the antique mirror. His black eyebrows added some character, but what his mother called his 'peaches and cream complexion' reproached him with its unlined perfection.

A brown hand thrust itself under his chin. "Renaldo Alarcon," said the hand. Wes spun around, hoping he hadn't been observed examining himself in the mirror. He relaxed
at the broad grin offered by Renaldo and shook hands. "Wes Lyedecker, nice to meet you."

"What's that accent?" asked Renaldo, wrinkling up his nose.

"I'm from Boston."

"Oh, yeah. Boston. That's back East."

"That's right. Uh huh." Wes felt the moment hang there like a string of drool.

"So," said Renaldo. "You whacked a biker."

Wes nodded. "Looks that way."

Renaldo nodded back. He clapped Wes on the shoulder, said, "Later, amigo," and wandered off.

"Ohhh, fuck me!" groaned one of the bikers at the dart board across the room. Though most of the bikers were graybeards, this one was young and clean shaven. He wore a denim vest with no shirt, his arms windburned an angry red.

"Why would a nice lookin' boy like you want to join the fuzz?" asked Cosmo, placing a hand on the bar. His nails were long, ridged, gray and curved at the tip.

"Oh, now he's hugging people!" said Bell, casting a glance into the pit. The other cops followed his look. The young biker had a fat old biker wrapped in a bear hug. "Ten minutes and he turns nasty."

Wes turned back to Cosmo's magnified gaze. He slugged down half his drink, winced, and said, "I guess I would have to say it was community based policing. The opportunity to get involved, you know, at the grass roots. And to make a difference out there."

The jukebox kicked in with
I Fought the Law
. The cops sang along with the chorus, shouting "And the law won!" at the bikers in the pit.

"I don't know," said Cosmo. "When I grew up in New York - I grew up in New York - when I grew up in New York we always had a cop on the corner." Cosmo wiped his nose on a paper drink napkin. "And we hated the fuckin' asshole."

"Surf's up, dude!" called Renaldo to Bell as the opening bars of
Wipeout
poured from the Wurlitzer. Bell slapped the bar in time to the jackhammer percussion, sending his empty martini glass skittering across the grainy wood. Renaldo and Hansey were shootin' the curl as Little Jim attempted a couple of tenative dance steps, stroking his arms up and down, doing The Swim.

The young biker vaulted up the steps from the pit and plunked down an empty beer pitcher. He stole up behind Wes Lyedecker and snaked a steely arm under his right armpit. "Say what it is, team
player
?"

Wes bent forward and squeezed kinetic energy into his pecs and lats, preparing to explode upward. Bell ceased drumming and gazed lazily in the biker's direction. "Hey, Chug," he said. "Your dick reach your asshole?"

Chug wrapped his other arm around Lydeceker. Wes remained in his bunched up position, waiting for his training officer's cue. "Say it again, team
player
."

Bell sighed. "Does-your-dick-reach-your-ass-hole?"

Little Jim moved a few steps closer, his marbled pink cheeks white. The other bikers looked on. Chug released Wes and stepped back. He stomped his boot on the wood floor and grinned like a chimp. "Absofuckinlutely!"

Bell smiled happily. "Then go fuck yourself."

This remark apparently took a long time to filter down to Chug's stimulant-addled speech-recognition center. When it did, the simian grin disappeared. He worked his jaw back and forth and raised up on the balls of his feet. "Fuck you up, man."

Bell jumped up, knocking his barstool backwards. The bikers in the pit climbed to their feet. Chug pushed off with his left leg and launched his broad body behind a red-knuckled fist.

Bell began to V his arms. Wes began to cringe. At this point on the football field the pursuing safety would slacken his stride. The fullback was about to get creamed.
But Little Jim shot forward, reached out a hand big as a catcher's mitt and snagged Chug's fist in midair. Chug twisted and ducked down, trying to free his hand. Little Jim used the momentum to spin him into a hammerlock. He lay back on the wrist. Chug's knee hit the floor. The bikers started moving up the steps.

"Have some chili, Chug," said Cosmo, setting a steaming bowl on the bar. "It's good shit."

Little Jim and Chug froze in place as all eyes turned to Cosmo behind the bar. He waved a hoary hand. "Let him go, ya dumb lug."

Little Jim did as he was told. Chug stood up slowly, twisting his torso back into place, flexing his neck, shaking his hand, reclaiming his dignity. Cosmo beckoned with a gray talon. "C'mon."

Chug mounted a stool. He ate the chili as if nothing had happened. "'s good," he said between spoonfuls.

The bikers returned to the pit. Bell nodded his thanks to Little Jim.

"Have some chili, kid," said Cosmo, setting another bowl on the bar. Cosmo polished a spoon with a drink napkin, then used the napkin to wipe his nose. Chug was bent to his bowl like a stewbum at the Rescue Mission.

"That was nice work," said Wes. "In school we'd call that creative problem solving."

Cosmo handed Wes the polished spoon. "The thing of it is, fuckin' drunks, when they get drunk, the best way to handle 'em is to feed 'em. You get some food down there, the blood rushes to their stomach, they pass out."

Wes examined the bowl in front of him. He had eaten chili before of course but, unlike his mother's soupy mixture of canned tomatoes and hamburger, this chili was thick as sand. He dredged up a spoonful and placed it in his mouth. Cosmo passed him a glass of ice water as the jalapenos kicked in. With big eyes perched on a small,
triangular face he reminded Wes of an arboreal lemur staring at the camera in the pages of
National Geographic
.

"So you want to help people? Is that it?"

Wes grinned. "That's it."

Cosmo shook his head. "A nice, good-lookin' kid like you."

Wes lowered his spoon and leaned forward. "It's just that…our society has become so striated," he said. Cosmo crooked an eyebrow. "Segmented,
Balkanized
. Everybody separating out into their own groups. Their own tribes. I think it's really sad." Wes tossed back the remnants of his martini. Cosmo corralled the empty glass and reached down for the freezer door. "I mean, everybody's a part of everybody else."

Cosmo looked cross. "Oh yeah. Like that commercial. Where the guy is shaving his face and turns into an Chinaman."

"Right. And then he morphs into a black guy and then a Native American and …."

"I didn't think they shaved. Indians."