Crystal Meth Cowboys (7 page)

Wes examined the chocolate brown carpeting. It was dusty. "That all makes sense. I can see your point of view. But why is it OK for
my
voice to be on the commercial?"

Bell gestured to a rack of signal processing equipment. "Because I've got you so filtered, echoed and EQ'd your own mother wouldn't recognize you."

Then they wouldn't recognize you either, thought Wes. But he stepped up to the mike, cleared his throat and read take after take until the words merged themselves into one lengthy polysyllable devoid of meaning.

"OK," said Bell, plunking the stop button. "There's gotta be a good one in there somewhere. Florence!"

"Hi there!" said Florence Jillison, breezing into the studio, wearing a beaded jacket over a raw silk chemise and matching side split skirt the color of the Caribbean Sea. "Sorry I'm late." She turned to Wes and positively beamed. "Officer Lyedecker, what a treat!"

Wes nodded, surprised that she knew his name. He didn't recall being introduced during the 415 call.

"I thought the rookie could help us spitball a spot," said Bell, clapping a hand on Lyedecker's shoulder. "He graduated Harvard, you know."

"No!"

"Magna cum laude."

Wes felt his cheeks color as he shook his head. He wanted to set the record straight but Florence regarded him with such open-mouthed awe that it seemed a shame to disappoint her.

Bell handed Wes a legal pad. "So how we gonna trash ol' Boss Hogg?'

Florence addressed herself to Bell. "Well, first I want to thank you for the generous offer of your studio. As you know I've been spending what little money I have on newspaper ads, but who reads anymore? I can't afford TV. Radio seems the best way for me to speak to the voters one to one. Besides personal appearances, of course."

"Of course," nodded Bell. She was repeating his sales pitch word for word.

"Oh, congratulations! I hear the SRB was a clean sweep."

"Yeah, well Hizzoner the Mayor didn't see it that way," said Bell. "But after Bernie Fischer got through the ol' Harbor Bomber swung the vote."

Florence Jillison ducked her head. In the final month of the campaign she was on full combat alert. She ventured a timid "Who?"

Bell thrust out his upper teeth, slitted his eyes and said, "Ooooh, Admiral Shitamoko he say-uh Bell and Ryedecker-uh
not gittey
! Vely fine poricemen. Oh yes.
Vely
fine." He stopped when he saw that Florence wasn't smiling. "So why'd he do it?"

"Who?" said Florence.

"Boss Hogg."

"Why did he do what?"

"Why did he try to nail me, us, to the cross with less than a month to go before the election?"

"Oh I don't know," said Florence. "Maybe I've got him worried. He's spent the last twelve years attending Rotary banquets and playing golf. My guess is he wanted to throw a bone to the down and out."

Bell nodded to himself, his suspicions confirmed. "So we do the ol' piss and pitch. Piss on him for twenty seconds, then pitch you hard for forty."

Wes twitched, nervous that Bell's crudity would offend Ms. Jillison. Florence removed her beaded jacket, folded it and draped it over her shoulder. She inhaled, swelling her breasts against the silk. "Works for me," she said.

Wes scribbled hurriedly on the legal pad, reverting to cursive for greater speed. "How's this for an opening line?" He deepened his voice, conscious that he had the full attention of his elders. "Florence Jillison believes that the office of the Mayor of Wislow should be more than just a 'ceremonial' position."

Florence turned to Bell who shrugged his approval. She took a step toward Wes, her eyes burning bright. Wes noticed that the tawny cast to her skin was actually a constellation of tiny freckles that disappeared into the open neck of her blouse. Florence glanced her head back and forth in abject wonder and, for an instant, Wes was sure she would kiss him. "Oh,” she cooed, “it's
perfect
,".

-----

"You think Ms. Jillison has a chance of getting elected?" asked Wes. They were a half hour into swing shift, cruising eastbound toward the swaybacked spine of mountains that separated Wislow from the rest of the United States. A burst of fuchsia caught Lyedecker's eye out the passenger side window. He looked up to see the wind riffle a thicket of flowering manzanita two hundred feet up the sunny side of a shaded arroyo.

"Prolly not," said Bell. "Boss Hogg's got all the bucks."

The LTD rounded a walnut orchard on the left, the crowns of the trees arched together in a leafy dome. A shaft of sun pierced a row of trees spotlighting a smudge pot overgrown with grass as green as a Gaelic spring.

"That's a shame." said Wes. "She seems very progressive."

After recording the radio commercial Florence lingered in the studio, watching Bell splice tape. In an offhanded way she asked Wes if he had 'talked' to anyone about the shooting. Wes said he had not. He wasn't going to spill his guts to a department shrink and get branded a weak sister, and he certainly wasn't going to tell his mother. Florence Jillison led him out onto the sunny back patio and asked Wes if he would care to talk to her.

Wes didn't answer right away, played with the dogs, didn't feel like it. Florence waited, watching him. The depths of warmth and understanding in those hazel eyes would have soothed a rabid wolverine. Wes told his story in some detail.

Florence listened, saying little. When Wes described the final shots to the naked man's face, Florence blinked tears from her eyelashes. Wes understood that women were their canaries in the mine shaft. His mother, when his parents were still together, used to cough reflexively when his father lit a cigarette in the other room. And here was Florence Jillison, expressing the grief that the men could not. Wes didn't tell her about the naked man's last word. He hadn't told anyone. It seemed to violate a confidence somehow.

The Crown Victoria passed from the shadow of the orchard into a splash of late afternoon sun that painted the long grass in bright chlorophyll, the light so pure it almost hurt to look.

"Florence wondered if Mr. Bjornstedt left any personal effects. Anything we should forward to his family."

Bell was driving with his left hand, his right arm flung out along the top of the benchseat like a Sunday driver. "Reese found some pencil drawings in his bag. Said they were pretty good. Of course a lotta ampheads do arts and crafts. In Yermo there was this biker who woodburned Pickett's charge, you know, from the battle of Gettysburg,
all up and down his living room wall. Copied it from a book," said Bell. "The detail was amazing."

The LTD rounded a bend and approached the towering smoke stack of the diatomaceous earth plant. The on-shore flow swept the thick white smoke east toward the mountains. Wes noticed that the roadside bushes were splotched with white. As they passed under the stack a few drops of chalky condensation spotted the windshield. "The Department," shuddered Bell in the strangled voice of Richard Nixon, "Of Evil."

"So," said Wes. "Should we send the drawings along?"

"No we should not," said Bell. "We should definitely not send the bereaved members of the dead man's family, assuming he has one that gives a shit, a tearful letter saying 'Here are some momentos I recovered after shooting your husband/father/son to death six times with my semi-automatic, treasure them always and please contact me at the above address with future wrongful death lawsuits.'" Bell shook his head slowly from side to side. "No, we should definitely not do that."

"Florence could send them. She volunteered."

Bell got on the brake as lonesome Highway 46 became busy Playa Road at the southeast corner of Wislow. He grasped the wheel with both hands, the Sunday drive over. "You do not
ever
, under any circumstances, share evidence with a civilian."

They motored down Playa Road past J Street. A pigeon nestled in the green traffic light. Bell looked up as they passed. "How come they never hang out in the amber light?"

Wes pondered. "Probably because the amber light doesn't stay on long enough to warm them up."

"12 Frank - Control."

Bell leaned over, stopped, leaned back and gestured to the radio mike. "You do it, you're so fuckin smart."

Wes picked up the boxy metal microphone, coughed dryly, depressed the button and said, "Control, this is 12
Frank," in clear, crisp tones. He remained hunched forward, waiting for the return transmission. There was no response.

"You gotta key off, dickhead," said Bell, broadcasting this friendly reminder throughout the entire north county on the blue frequency. Wes released the button and the speaker spit static.

"Disturbance, 2-8-3-6 H-Hill, in the carport."

Wes keyed on, said, "Roger, control," and keyed off. Bell looked left at the
lublublublub
of an idling late 60's muscle car. He saw a lace-painted lavender 389 cubic inch '69 El Camino with chrome exhausts. The guy in the passenger's seat, a big necked Mexican with mounds of pommaded black hair slicked back and razor cut, smiled at him.

Bell gave him a cool once-over but the man didn't look away. Bell let his look linger. The man turned to the driver, another well-barbered Mexican, and said something. They both laughed.

When the light turned the El Camino rumbled into gear. Bell kept his boot on the brake and his eyes left. As the Chevy pulled away the pommaded Mexican gave Bell a down smile and a thumbs up. The line of cars behind the LTD Crown Victoria waited patiently until Bell released the brake and proceeded through the intersection. "What the fuck was that all about?" he said.

Chapter 8

"Fuck me! Kill me!"

She was laying on her back on the oil-smeared concrete of the carport. A pitted orange '76 Mustang sat in the adjoining space but Wilhemina Fredericks had the corner slot all to herself.

"Fuck me, kill me! Fuck me, kill me!"

The crowd of onlookers flared back as she began to heave upwards with every outburst. Bell and Lyedecker stood on the sidewalk next to the carport. It was 5:41 PM.

"Fuck me, kill me, fuck me, kill me!"

She wore only a Pep Boys t-shirt that came halfway down a great white belly veined with purple stretch marks. With every upward thrust her thighs parted, presenting her rubicund vulva to the rapt crowd.

"Fuck me kill me fuck me kill me fuck me kill me!"

The motor oil from the concrete floor stained her suety haunches and inner thighs as she writhed on her spine.

"2-8-3-6 H-Hill Street, in the carport," droned Bell into his lapel mike. He glanced down at the large woman. "We'll need the truck," he said and keyed off.

Wilhemina tugged her t-shirt down over her crotch and emitted a low moan as she rocked back and forth on the oil slick. The spectators grew restive. "C'mon mama," said a voice. "Show the titties."

Wes tore his eyes away from the writhing woman, thinking that there certainly seemed to be a lot of nudity associated with police work.

Bell advanced, arms wide. "Let's back it up. Let's go, show's over, let's go." Wes locked his hands on either side of his gunbelt and followed Bell's right shoulder.

The crowd dispersed, some heading across the alley or up the stairs to their apartments, bantering loudly in English, Spanish and Tagalog. Some hung back by the overflowing garbage dumpster, scuffling around, sheepish, waiting to see what was next. Wes wondered how they could stand the smell.

The cops turned back to the supine woman. She was silent now, her eyes rolled up into her head, her meaty legs twitching like a spaniel dreaming of jackrabbits. Bell squatted down and made soothing noises while he felt the woman's thick wrist for a pulse. He gazed at his wristwatch for a long moment, then looked up at Lyedecker. "Either this woman is dead or my watch has stopped."

Wes had heard the joke before and considered it in the worst possible taste given the circumstances. But he brayed out a sharp laugh before covering up with a couple of coughs. The dumpster men stood on tiptoe, craning their necks to see.

Wilhemina snorted violently. Her eyes popped open. Her zinc gray irises were thin halos around her distended pupils. She fluttered short pale lashes, looked up at Wes hopefully and said, "Wayne?"

------

Wes listened to the crickets. He had always considered crickets to be soothing background noise but the chirping crickets in the culvert next to the kale field where Bell and Lyedecker were parked were
loud
. Two Taco Bell supreme burritos, one supreme taco and a pintos'n'cheese lay scuttled on the bottom of Wes Lyedecker's stomach like that Russian sub in the Marianas Trench. He felt sluggish. The Miscellaneous Service card on his knee was half filled out. Bell drummed long white digits on the steering wheel. They were laying for Farmer John.

Wes sat in the bright bell of high-intensity light from the crookneck reading lamp. He had reached the space on the MS card that demanded a call code number. He dug under the pile of pinch books in the middle of the bench seat and pulled out the call code directory. He flipped through page after page of numbered violations, trying to find the precise designation for their most recent call.

Bell and Lyedecker had gotten Wilhemina Fredericks up on her feet before the police van arrived. Bell sent Wes up the sagging wooden staircase to fetch Wilhemina some clothes from her apartment. He had been surprised to find a teenage girl reclining on the couch watching television.

Wes turned to his partner. "What's the call code for a beserk naked woman screaming obscenities in a carport?"

Bell smiled. He was playing with a miller moth, ushering him up his pants crease with a protective index finger. "Just put '2601, general disturbance'. I put that down for everything and nobody's flagged it yet."

Wes continued flipping through the book, ignoring Bell's suggestion. All his reports were going to have to be letter perfect from now on. The Chief could fire him without explanation at any time during probation. '0374 - Assault with a Deadly Weapon, hands, feet, etc.', '2312 - Civil Problem - Keep the Peace', read the call codes. The woman was obviously high on drugs but, since they hadn't found any contraband or paraphenalia, Wes settled on '2611 - Disturbance, Mental'.