Dark Rain: 15 Short Tales (11 page)

leaned a hip against my desk, arms folded over my still-burning chest.

The girl asked if she could smoke. I told her she couldn’t. She pointed out that she’d smoked a crap-ton the night before, and what difference did it make? I pointed out that if people everywhere followed that line of logic, then the world would descend into anarchy. And if that happened, only the strong would survive… or those who had mastered the diamond push-up. She asked if I had been drinking. I told her I hadn’t had a drink since last Tuesday. She looked skeptical.

“To sum up,” I said, “the answer is no.”

“Please.”

“No.”

“Pretty please?”

“There’s nothing pretty about it. Start speaking. What’s your name?”

“Camry,” she said.

“Like the car?”

“Please don’t make any Toyota jokes.”

“I’m not sure I could if I tried.”

“Well, good. I’ve heard a few corny ones, trust me.” She pulled her sock-clad feet up on my couch and hugged her knees. Her socks were pristine white. How girls kept their socks so damn white was a mystery to me.

“Who are you?” I asked again.

“I told you.”

“No, you told me your name, which just so happens to be the name of the most reliable car in America.”

“Is that a joke?”

“Just an observation. Now, start talking.”

She looked at me with eyes that weren’t fully awake, or alert, or aware. She might have been a little high. She was cute, in a strung-out kind of way. Dark rings around high cheekbones. Pale skin. Soft muscles hanging loose over a longish frame. She could have been beautiful. But for now, she had to settle for cute with a chaser of ‘what could have been.’

“I need your help,” she said finally. “But first, I would like some coffee.”

I looked at her. She looked at me. Neither of us budged until I remembered her bruises and her bloody lip, which now hung in a pout. I sighed, pushed off the desk, and headed over to the sink. Once there, I washed the coffee pot, slipped in a new filter, guesstimated the right amount of Folgers, and turned on
Señor Café
, which sounded more erotic than it should have.

While we waited, Camry was content to sit quietly on the couch, hugging her knees and looking forlorn. While the coffeemaker came to life, belching and hissing, I leaned against the little counter. A few years ago, I had tried to do incline push-ups against it and had nearly torn the whole thing out of the wall.

“How did you get inside my office?” I finally asked.

For an answer, she reached inside her purse and pulled out a gun-shaped tool that looked familiar. In fact, I had one in my desk drawer. It was a lock-pick gun.

“That would do it.” I made a mental note to invest in a double-deadbolt. “So, you’re a thief?”

She looked at me long and hard, although her eyes might have wavered a little. Being high does that. Finally, she nodded. “When I have to be.”

“For drugs?”

“Is there another reason?” she asked.

“For the thrill of it?”

She shook her head and reached down for her pack of cigs, but as she did so, I shook my head and she sighed and dropped the pack back into her purse. “Sometimes, there’s a thrill. Mostly, I’m terrified.”

“You seemed real terrified,” I said, “when I caught you drooling on my couch.”

She snorted and wiped the corner of her mouth. “Well, I wasn’t robbing you. I was exhausted. It seemed like, you know, a safe place to crash. Besides, there’s nothing here to rob.”

“Ouch.”

Behind me, my computer chimed.
An email.
It took all of my considerable willpower not to check it.

“How old are you?” I asked.

“Twenty-five.”

“So, why are you here?”

“I need protection.”

“From whom?”

She pushed up the sleeve of her shirt and showed me another tattoo. It was of a familiar logo. Mostly I had seen it on the backs of leather jackets, worn by guys with long beards, long hair, and loud motorcycles.

“From them.”

ext, she asked if I had any food.

I held up my coffee cup and said, “You’re looking at it.”

She said, “Don’t be mean,” and started crying, and the next thing I knew, I was in the drive-thru at Jack-in-the-Box, ordering her a breakfast croissant and juice, and for me, the entire left side of the menu.

Camry was asleep when I returned. I suspected the waterworks had been a ploy. Speaking of waterworks, yes, there was more drool.
Stay classy, Huntington Beach.

I dropped her bag next to her and said, “Breakfast.”

She gasped and sat up. Chuckling, I went behind my desk and dug into my own two bags.

“How did you hear about me?” I asked between our communal munching sounds.

“Looked you up in an old phone book. I thought your name was the coolest.”

“It is, and people still have those? Phone books?”

She didn’t look at me while she ate. “Yes, why?”

I shrugged, although she didn’t see it. “I was making a social commentary on the progress of technology.”

“Sounded more like a stupid question to me.”

“That, too.” I generally didn’t take much to heart, especially from someone who was hungry, alone, hurting, and on the run. Whether or not she was a good person, I didn’t much care. Whether or not I did my job right, kept her safe, and thwarted the evildoers, was a different story. “Do you want to talk about it?” I asked.

“About what?”

“Obamacare,” I said. “Or why you need protection. You pick.”

“You think you’re funny or something?”

“Or something,” I said.

“I don’t think you’re funny.”

“Neither did Mrs. Neville.”

“Who’s that?”

“My sixth-grade teacher.”

“If I tell you about it, will you stop with the jokes?”

“Probably not.”

She thought about that as she munched on the last of the croissant sandwich I’d brought for her, a croissant sandwich that she’d yet to thank me for. After a moment, she shrugged and told me the story.

It had been a wild night of partying. In fact, every night was a wild night of partying. Camry was often high or drunk or both. She was Steel Eye’s girl and everyone knew it and stayed away.

“Did you say Steel Eye?”

“Yes.”

I nodded. “Carry on.”

Everyone respected her and treated her as one of the guys. Except for one guy. One guy who was now dead. His name had been J-Bird.

“All we were doing was talking.” Camry looked away and rubbed the back of her neck. “When Steel Eye flipped out.”

“What else were you two doing?”

She did more neck-rubbing and shrugging, but now she wouldn’t make eye contact with me. “We were maybe kissing, too.”

“I take it Steel Toe didn’t appreciate another man kissing his girl.”

“Steel Eye, and yeah, you could say that.”

“Did J-Bird understand the ramifications of kissing you?”

“He loved me. He would have done anything for me.”

“Did you love him?”

She shrugged, looked away again. “I thought he was interesting.”

“You led him on.”

“I might have flirted—”

“Did you encourage him?”

She huffed. “I was bored.”

“And now he’s dead,” I said. “Still bored?”

“No. Now, I’m scared.”

I shook my head. “I think you knew what would happen to J-Bird. I think you knew that Steel Balls—”

“
Eye
.”

“—would come for J-Bird, probably even kill him. I don’t think you cared much about the Birdman at all. I think you wanted some excitement. I think you got more excitement than you bargained for.”

I watched her carefully. Her jaw rippled. She was angry. Her fists tightened around her napkin, the knuckles showing white. Then her hand opened a little, and her jaw slackened. She looked at me with real tears in her eyes. It was a complete metamorphosis. “He promised to get me out of the gang. We talked quietly, secretly. For days. And one night, we were both drinking, and we got carried away.”

I waited, watched her. Outside, something heavy rumbled along Beach Boulevard. The window behind me actually rattled. On the surrounding wall, were dozens of framed photographs and articles that featured yours truly. Back in the day, I was someone important. Now, I was only important to Cindy, my girlfriend, and Junior, my dog, which was good enough for me.

“But that didn’t mean the son-of-a-bitch had to kill him. He fucking shot him. Right there.”

“Did you see Steel Eye shoot him?”

“No. He’d slapped me. I was on the ground, crying. J-Bird tried to protect me from getting kicked, and I heard them drag J-Bird away. Heard them beat him up pretty good. And then…”

“And then what?”

“They shot him in some bushes near the Pit.”

“The Pit?”

“The fire pit we all hung out at.”

“Of course,” I said. “Because that’s what bikers do, hang out in the desert around fire pits.”

She said nothing. I didn’t think she even heard me. After listening to her sobs and the steady drone of the afternoon traffic, I asked, “Where’s the Pit?”

“What?”

“The Pit. Where’s the Pit located?”

“The desert somewhere.”

“What desert? Joshua Tree? Mohave? Serengeti?”

“I don’t know. I just ride. I go where Steel Eye takes me.”

“Is it in California?” I started the twenty questions game.

“Yes.”

“What’s the biggest city you can remember passing through?”

She thought about that for a long moment. “Palm Springs. Down the 111.”

Yeah, there was a lot of desert around Palm Springs. Not a lot to go on, but I’d taken cases more vague than this.

“Any interesting scenery down that way?”

“The Salton Sea. There were pelicans. Wait, I do remember something.” She paused. “There was a kitschy sign. It said, ‘Slab City. Welcome.’ Just after the sign was our turnoff. To the right. Dirt road goes right past the Pit.”

Bingo
. It only took three questions to get it out of her. I was that good. I knew the place, too. Slab City, a former military base, was now an RV squatters’ town full of impromptu flea markets and drug commerce. Drifters and grifters.

I said, “What’s Steel Eye’s real name?”

“I don’t know.”

“What about J-Bird?”

“Jason, I think.”