Down Solo (10 page)

“Didn’t need to hit him like that,” Herbie says.

“It won’t show, so what’s your problem?” Melinda’s got her high back. I hear the bottle of Jack thump down on the table.

“I just decided to kill two birds with one stone,” Herbie says. I hear a match flare and smell weed burning.

“How’s that?”

“After delivery, I’m gonna send him to Mario’s. When Mario opens his front door, Ka-Boom! Goodbye fuckin’ deadbeat. He’ll never pay us anyway.”

I discover that I can watch without leaving the body and without opening its eyes. My roaming body can just sit there and observe and listen. Being dead is just full of surprises.

Herbie crosses to stand behind Melinda and takes her hair in his hand. She turns her head and accepts a lungful of smoke; their lips lock in a lingering kiss—tweaker love at its most poignant. Herbie sits down and starts with the pipe and torch again.

I roam through the hallway into the back room. There’s a mattress on the floor and a single lamp next to it on a board supported by two cinderblocks. Next to the lamp is a framed photo of Herbie and Melinda in better days. They’re standing on the beach by a pier; Herbie in board shorts, tan and muscular, and Melinda looking hot in a skimpy bathing suit. They look happy.

There’s a pile of clothes at the end of the bed, otherwise nothing in the room tells me anything useful. I go back to the body.

Junkies and tweakers are different breeds. They’re looking for opposite effects: one wants to feel less and the other wants to feel more. They both wind up numb to everything except for the desperate need to continue staying numb. And so, they’re different but the same. After all, addiction is addiction.

Herbie starts unwrapping the bandaging on his finger. Melinda says, “Christ, Herbie, you gotta stop that,” but he ignores her. Now he reaches in his backpack and pulls out a magnifying glass on a metal base, the kind hobbyists use for close-up work, and sets it on the table. Next, he finds a scalpel, a needle, a bottle of alcohol, and a small amber vial.

“Herbie, the doctor said there’s no glass in the cut. You gotta let it heal.”

“Fuckin’ beaner doctors don’t know shit.” Herbie uses the torch to sterilize the scalpel and the needle, then puts his hand under the magnifying glass. He pours a drop of Jack Daniels on the injured finger and shakes some powder out of the vial onto the cut.

“At least give me some of that,” Melinda says. She takes the vial and empties half of it onto the top of her fist, then snorts the whole pile. “You’re fuckin’ wasting good coke.”

“Shut up Mel. Just stop fuckin’ ragging on me for five fuckin’ minutes.” Now he positions the flashlight so the beam is on his finger. He bends to the magnifier and goes to work with the needle. “How ’bout you set him up with the cuff.”

“Fuckin’ great.” Melinda digs in the drawer and pulls out a shiny black plastic device. It looks like the lower half of a hinged knee brace, but with some modifications. There’s a pocket inside, and a metal hasp on the outside. Melinda inserts a duct-taped package into the pocket; it’s got an LED peeking out the top and a wire—probably an antenna—wrapped around it. Then she hikes my left pant leg up to my knee and puts the device on my ankle. She closes the hasp and secures it with a small three-ring combination lock. She goes to the table and pulls a transmitter out of the drawer; when she pushes a switch, the LED turns on. She puts the transmitter down and starts with the pipe and butane torch again.

¤ ¤ ¤

It’s getting light outside. Herbie and Melinda have been getting high and arguing about his hand and the glass that is or isn’t still in it. They’ve been talking about politics and their parents and which band is better, Metallica or AC/DC. They’ve been jabbering about getting clean and going to the Big Island. I can’t stand it anymore so I decide to stir, making like I’m groggy and just coming to, which isn’t far from the truth as roaming seems to take more out of me each time I try it.

“Hey, hey, the Lone Ranger’s waking up.” Herbie’s smoking another joint and drinking a can of Coke, probably to keep his blood sugar up enough to fool his body into thinking it’s being fed. “You messed up my ankle, dude, but I forgive you. I shouldn’t have kicked you like that. My bad.” He’s hobbling around the table, circling it over and over, gesticulating with his arms spread wide. Melinda has her elbow on the table and her head propped up, cheek to hand.

“So what’s the plan, Herbie?” He’s squinting against the sunlight filtering through the dusty window.

“Charlie wants to know what the plan is. Melinda, why don’t you lay it on him?”

Melinda’s crashing. She looks at me without moving; her lips are chapped and the first two times she opens her mouth nothing comes out. I notice that the glass tube on the table is empty. She speaks in a monotone: “You’ve got a packet of C-4 explosive locked onto your leg. It’s armed and ready to blow if I hit this button on the transmitter.” Now she picks up the transmitter and shows it to me.

“It’s got a range of two miles. If you get out of range, the loss of contact will detonate the explosive. If you try to take it off, it’ll blow. If you detour from the plan, I hit the button and you’re beef jerky.”

“Okay, I got it. But what’s the plan?” I’m guessing that I’m going to be a drug mule, but I want it spelled out by one of these bozos.

“You’re just gonna get in the car and drive back to the States. As soon as you’re across the border in San Ysidro, you’re pulling into the Denny’s on your right and swapping cars with Herbie. You’ll have one more quick job to do and we’ll disarm the detonator and text you the combination to the lock.” The right corner of her lip edges up in a weird parody of a smile.

“What about my daughter?”

Herbie says, “Not our problem, man. Maybe the team you’re supposed meet up with will save the day.” He laughs as he opens the door and goes outside, putting on sunglasses as he goes.

“He’s actually a really good guy,” says Melinda. “This is our last run and then we’re moving to Kona. We’re gonna get clean and just grow weed.”

“That’s good, Melinda. That’s really good. Maybe I can visit someday.”

She looks almost sad for a moment. “I don’t think that’s gonna happen, Charlie.”

Herbie comes back in with a backpack. He puts it on the table and pulls out three packages. Each one is about the size of a brick and is wrapped securely with duct tape. Where the tape isn’t covering it, I can see a brick of white powder wrapped in clear plastic. Herbie’s been a very busy little cook.

“Okay Charlie, from now until we meet up north, you’re Paul Cleary.” He tosses the passport and driver’s license on the floor in front of me. He turns to Melinda and says, “I’m gonna go into town and gas up the car. Then I’ll take care of the plates and put the product in the doors.”

Melinda doesn’t look happy. She’s got shades on too; she’s fidgety and the Jack Daniels bottle is empty. “Aren’t you gonna leave me a little something?”

She’s whining now and Herbie doesn’t like it. “Stay focused, Mel. When I’m back I’ll fix you up. It’s just fuckin’ town and back, twenty minutes, fuckin’ live with it.”

And he leaves.

¤ ¤ ¤

I watch Melinda deteriorate over the next five minutes. She gets up and paces, sits down and drums her fingers on the table, chews on her cheek, and keeps a separate drum beat with her left knee vibrating the table.

For fun, I say, “Hey, can I get up and go to the bathroom? I’ve been sitting here for hours.”

She jumps up like a startled rabbit and yells, “Shut the fuck up.” She has the transmitter in her hand and thrusts it at me like a knife fighter. She puts it on the table and circles it, staring at the bricks of meth. Finally, she pulls a knife out of the drawer and opens a corner of one of the bricks. She pulls a chunk of the powder out and drops it in the glass pipe and sits down and starts the butane torch.

She’s staring at the bowl of the pipe as the heat hits the powder and it starts turning into a gas when I pull out DeShaun’s Ruger. I shoot her in the left knee. The pipe flies out of her hand and the torch drops to the table, hissing as it spits a thin blue flame. I aim the Ruger at Melinda’s face. “Hands up. Very slowly, I want you to give me the key to the handcuffs.”

Her hands go up. The transmitter is right in front of her.

“I don’t have them. They’re in the other room. I can’t walk.”

I aim at her other knee and say, “Counting, one, two . . .”

She says, “Okay, okay, they’re right here.” She reaches into the drawer. If she pulls out a gun, I’m in trouble since I’ll have to shoot her and start all over again with Herbie. I aim at her face again and repeat, “Slow, Melinda, really slow and careful.”

Her hand comes out with the key. I tell her, “Good. Now, lean toward me and toss the key right here.” I gesture to the floor in front of me. She’s only five feet away, but she’s messed up, and the key could fly like the pipe did.

The key lands on the concrete at my feet.

I keep the gun pointed right between her eyes. “Hey, Melinda . . .”

“What?” She’s in shock, which is useful because it’s keeping her calm.

“Hands behind your head . . . that’s good. Now, use your right foot, push yourself away from the table . . . good, farther. Okay, stay like that.” She’s far enough from the transmitter that she can’t get to it. I have a feeling there’s enough C-4 on me to blow us both up and she knows it, but she could be crazy enough to take us both out.

I keep the gun on her while I open the cuff on my wrist. I get up and take Melinda by the elbow and help her up.

“What are you doing? I can’t walk.”

I pull on her elbow and she starts to keel over. She’s about five eight but couldn’t weigh more than a hundred pounds. I lower her to a sitting position and drag her to where I had been all night and bang the cuff on her wrist. It goes to its smallest diameter before it’s snug enough to keep her from slipping her hand out.

The butane torch is starting to scorch the table. I turn it off and sit in the chair Melinda was just in. There’s blood on the floor. I scoot over so that I’m right in front of her and say, “Okay, now, stay with me. If you get this right, I’ll bring you the pipe and the torch and a whole damned brick, okay?”

She nods, wild-eyed, starting to shiver. She’s holding her leg with her free hand and rocking back and forth.

“The combination, Mel. I need the combination.”

“Three-eight-six,” She says in a croaking stammer.

I slide the chair back to the table and pick up the transmitter. I lift my pant leg up to expose the device; the red LED is visible. I flick off the “Arm” switch on the transmitter and the LED winks out. The combination is good and the whole thing comes off.

On a hunch, I take it outside and go into the trailer. There’s a ten-gallon drum of benzene on the workbench. I take the C-4 packet and radio detonator out of the ankle cuff and put it behind the drum.

Melinda’s shaking now. I retrieve the pipe from the floor; it’s broken and useless. I hold it up to show her and she nods toward the table. I open the drawer—it’s deep and compartmentalized—and find another pipe. I hand it to Melinda, along with the torch and the already opened brick.

¤ ¤ ¤

I go outside again. The gate is closed and the dirt road extends downhill through about a mile of brush. I can see the juncture to the main road that leads to the highway. The truck is parked right next to the house; the trailer is about fifty feet away. Behind it, the hills rise steeply, sparse and rocky.

Back in the house, Melinda’s lying on one side, propped on her elbow so she can use her cuffed hand to hold the pipe while she aims the torch with her right. Blood is drying, dark brown and stiff, on her jeans. She lets out a cloud of smoke.

“So what are you gonna do when Herbie gets back?”

“Guess I’m going to have to shoot him. Got any better ideas?”

“You could make a deal with him. You can take the car and leave. No problem. Just don’t shoot him.”

I think about the photo of them in the other room. Somewhere in their feeble minds they still think of themselves as the couple in the picture.

“He’s planning on killing me after I finish my delivery.”

Melinda goes wide-eyed on me. “No, man, that’s not true, he wouldn’t do that.”

“Two birds with one stone. Mario. Ka-Boom. I heard the whole plan.”

“He was just high. He talks out of his ass when he’s like that, for real.”

I go back to the drawer and rummage through it. There’s a plastic shopping bag in one of the compartments. It’s got an extra pack of C-4 and a remote. There’s a high-intensity flashlight and a pair of binoculars. I’m thinking if I get out of here and actually make it up the hill to the mine, this stuff could be useful. I wrap the pack of C-4 in a rag and put everything in the backpack.

I crack the door and see the Saturn stop at the gate. Herbie gets out and swings it open. I back into the house and crouch in the hallway to the bedroom, aiming the Ruger at the door. Melinda sits up and stares at the door, the torch in her free hand spitting its flame into the air.

The door starts to open and I’m ready to fire. Melinda yells, “Herbie, run!” and throws the torch at me. My shot goes wild as the torch bounces off my shoulder.

I sprint for the door and catch Herbie running toward the trailer. I fire at him from behind the truck, but miss as he goes up the steps into the trailer. He turns and fires twice with Mo’s gun; the rounds slam into the side of the truck as he opens the door and disappears inside.

I wait and watch. The Saturn is parked down the driveway, washed-out blue as the bright and cloudless sky; crows circle overhead, flapping and cawing in the morning sun. The trailer’s door starts to open. I put two bullets in it and it closes again.

Melinda’s voice screams, “You’re gonna die, motherfucker,” and a barrel pokes through the louvered windows on the side of the trailer. More bullets slam into the truck and fly past me in a swarm. I guess he got the Tec-9 converted to full auto. I fire at the windows and duck back into the house.