“You got any warrants?” Terry asked.
“No,” Shane said.
“That’s two hours from here. Two exits before Yuma. Easy in and out of Mexico, all the snowbirds go there for dental care when they’re down here. They’re liberal with their opiates and antibiotics in Mexico.” Shane nodded. “Dr. Degolado knows his way around minor surgery as well. He’s a friend too.” Shane nodded again. His foot was killing him. “Let me make a call.”
“You’d do that?”
“You walk into JFK with that,” Terry said, “you won’t walk out.”
Shane looked over at Hermie. He gave Shane an affirmative nod. What the fuck went on in that guy’s fucking mind?
“All right,” Shane said. “Set it for tomorrow afternoon?”
“What’s your name?”
Shane thought for a moment. “My friends,” he said, “call me Gold Mike.”
“What do you want the doctor to call you?”
“Mike Voski.”
Terry picked up his cell phone. “Give me five minutes,” he said, and then headed outside, which gave Shane a chance to casually snatch up Terry’s car keys from the table. He turned and looked out the window to where Terry’s Benz was parked, around the corner from where Terry stood, hit the unlock button, watched the car’s lights blink twice, set the keys back down.
Hermie the Clown didn’t utter a word, so Shane said, “You a monk or something?”
Hermie stared at Shane for a few seconds, then said, out loud, “You ever meet a chatty clown?”
“Can’t say I have.”
“That’s part of the game.” He reached over and picked up the car keys. Hit the button. Lights flashed again. Locked.
“How about I give you fifty dollars and we call it even?” Shane said.
Hermie said, “How about everything you’ve got in your wallet?”
Shane had his gun tucked under his shirt and could have, he supposed, shot Hermie, done him like Han Solo did Greedo, but Shane wasn’t yet the unprovoked murdering type. “Not gonna be much more than fifty.” He dug out his wallet, pulled out everything, set it on the table, sixty-seven bucks.
Hermie took it all. “Not personal, you understand.”
“Just two guys doing business,” Shane said.
Hermie stood up then, gathered up all his belongings, then pulled out his own business card, everyone in this fucking place the kings of Vista Print, apparently. It said:
“I’ll be back in a few days,” Hermie said. “If you’re coming back.”
“I’m coming back.”
“You’d be good in the clown game. You’ve got a nice presence.”
“Thanks,” Shane said.
“I got my teeth capped in Los Algodones. Can’t have janky teeth and be a clown. Freaks people out. Terry hooked me up.” Hermie went silent again, like he was trying to get Shane to ask him a question.
“And then what?” Shane finally said.
“And then I have to do Terry favors, periodically. Drop things off. Take out the garbage sometimes. Clean up his room. Favors. So, if you’re not willing to do that, I’d say keep moving, hoss.”
There it was.
“He really Jewish?” Shane asked.
“His brother was a rabbi,” Hermie said.
“Was?”
“Died.”
“Natural causes?”
“I didn’t ask for an autopsy.”
“Out here?”
“Las Vegas,” Hermie said. “Everyone here is always trying to get to Las Vegas, everyone in Las Vegas is always trying to get somewhere else, no one happy to be any one place.”
“You make a lot of sense, for a clown.”
“You’d be surprised what a guy can learn by staying quiet.” He looked outside, where Terry was still on the phone. “My Uber is here.” Hermie stood there for a moment, shifting back and forth in his big red shoes. “He doesn’t have a daughter,” Hermie said, then closed a giant, exaggerated zipper across his mouth, locked it, tossed away the key, and walked silently back out into the heat of the day. Hermie bumped fists with Terry, got into a waiting Prius, and drove off.
Shane unlocked the Benz again.
Terry came back in a few minutes later. “You’re all set, Gold Mike,” he said.
“What do I owe you?” Shane asked.
“Doctor will have a couple prescriptions for you to bring back.”
“That all?”
“Well,” Terry said, “you’ll need to go back for a follow-up. In which case, I might have something for you to deliver. Could be you come to find you like Mexico.”
“I’m gonna need wheels.”
“You beam here?”
“No,” Shane said. “Car broke down. It won’t be fixed for at least a week.”
Terry tapped a pen against his lips. “Okay,” he said. “How about I have Enterprise drop off a car for you. Nothing fancy, you understand. What do you have for collateral?”
Shane pondered this for a moment, then reached under his shirt and put his gun the table.
Shane waited until Cactus Pete’s was in full swing to make his move. Terry wasn’t kidding about the clientele: a steady stream of men with brush cuts and tucked-in polo shirts were followed by men and women in business suits, mostly of the off-the-rack variety, not a lot of tailored sorts doing time in Indio’s courthouse. Terry came out a couple times to take phone calls, cops and attorneys greeting him as they passed by, Shane watching from his window as they all glad-handed each other.
Shane took Gold Mike’s head, hands, and feet out of the safe, refilled the freezer bag with some fresh ice to help with the smell, zipped the bag back up, and headed downstairs. It was about seven, the sun still up, at least 105 degrees, and Shane saw that there were now anthill mounds rising up through the cracks in the parking lot pavement. The lot was full, a dozen Ford F-150s with American flags and 1199 Foundation stickers in the window, a couple Lexuses, a few BMWs, another five nebulous American cars, a surprising number of motorcycles, a couple Benzes. There was a Mexican kid, maybe six or seven, sitting on the tailgate of an F-150 parked next to Terry’s Benz, eating a Popsicle, playing on his phone. Shane’s rental, a white Ford Fiesta, was parked next to Terry’s Benz.
“You staying here?” Shane asked the kid.
“On the other side of the fairgrounds.” The kid pointed beyond the courthouse and jail.
Shane looked down the block. There was, in fact, a giant county fairground right next to the jail and courts. Across the street was an A-frame Wienerschnitzel cut-and-pasted from the 1970s, a fire station, an Applebee’s, a used car lot. He tried to imagine what it would be like to grow up here. Figured it was like anywhere else. Either you lived in a happy home or you lived in a shitty one.
“You should go home,” Shane said. “It’s late.”
“My dad works at the jail,” the kid said.
“Oh yeah?”
“He’s inside having a drink.”
“What’s he do there,” Shane said, “at the jail?”
“Something with computers.”