I slowed when I saw the old rusty Twin Oaks sign swinging in the breeze out front of the gas pumps. Slowing some more, I turned the big steering wheel and pulled the truck around to the back of the cafe, an archaic building made of natural stones, which I assumed were gathered from the desolate landscape around here.
As the truck’s headlights swung through their arch, a tall lanky guy wearing a white T-shirt and apron cinched over his Levi’s bolted from the back door of the cafe. He stumbled into the gravel lot waving his arms frantically. I slammed on the brakes, just missed the guy, and after jerking out the emergency brake handle, I jumped out of the cab.
“Did you see them? Are we under attack?” he shouted, hopping around.
I took a quick look about the area and saw nothing but the dark, quiet desert and a few overgrown weed stalks casting a dim shadow on the side of the building next to four overflowing trashcans. “Who’s attacking?” I asked.
“Rooskies! Martians! Hell, I don’t know! The radio is sending out a warning signal,” he hollered, running away.
“The radio? What are they saying?” I shouted to his back.
“Nothing, I was listening to KROQ, you know, Humble Harve, the rock ’n’ roll guy, and suddenly, the radio starts beeping.” The cleanup guy was now hiding behind the truck, peering out from behind the refrigerator van. “You know, the worldwide warning system. They didn’t say it was a test or nothin’ just, beep… beep… beep.”
Oh, Christ, Sol’s gizmo was broadcasting a worldwide alert-or at least a half-mile alert-as I drove along. “What’s the station frequency?” I shouted to the guy.
“L.A. Rocks with K-Rock, one-oh-six-point-seven on your dial.” The guy shouted the station’s jingle in a singsong voice.
“C’mon, fella, I think the radio is just broken or something. Why don’t we go inside and try another station?”
The poor guy. It was obvious: his bag of marbles had a hole in it.
CHAPTER 28
Back on the road, there was nothing as I drove through the night, my eyes focused ahead at the endless ribbon of black. Nothing except a pair of headlights following in the distance; Sol’s limo, I assumed. I thought about pulling over to the side of the road where I’d wait for Sol to come up behind me. I wanted to tell him that everyone was hearing the beeps coming from the truck. I glanced around some more. There was no one on the highway-except Sol-and just a few shacks were off in the distance, so unless jackrabbits had transistor radios, there was hardly a soul out there for miles who could hear my worldwide alert. Even when I got to Barstow, I’d be through the town so fast no one would notice a couple of beeps coming from their radios.
Sol was a little wild, but he was my friend, a simple declarative sentence that said it all. I smiled, thinking of the stuff he came up with: a tracking beeper on the truck, James Bond spy limos, and now he and a couple of his tough guys were following me in the desert. What next? Pearl-handled revolvers and maybe a tank division or two to help out when needed. I loved the guy.
I glanced at the headlights behind me in the distance and remembered back to the beginning of our friendship. It started when I was a member of the Los Angeles Police Force. It’d been well over ten years since then. What happened to the time? It was 1962, Kennedy was president, Marilyn was still alive, but by then Rock ’n’ Roll had faded out with a whimper. Chuck Berry and Fats Domino were nowhere to be seen-or heard. Buddy Holly had been killed in a plane crash a few years earlier, Elvis was making one-note movies, and the British Invasion had yet to happen. That year’s mega-star was Frankie Avalon.
In 1962, I was a rookie cop, still in my probationary period, a Police Officer status 1. I cruised in a one-man black-and-white and worked the first watch, nights, starting at eleven p.m. My turf was out of the Newton Street Division.
Although Newton had been known as one of the toughest divisions in Los Angeles, most nights it was calm-boring even. On other nights-nights when I earned my keep-it could be a war zone, but on that particular night, there wasn’t much going on, just a few radio calls coming in. I was drinking a lot of coffee to stay awake.
At about two a.m., I was parked at the curb on Central Avenue, sipping hot coffee with one hand and writing up crime reports with the other when, suddenly, this big Cadillac came barreling around the corner at Vernon Avenue. It skidded thorough the intersection and ended up on Central going north at a thousand miles per hour.
I lit up the flashers and started the motor. I was getting set to give chase when the Caddie’s taillights vanished around the corner at the next intersection. I stomped it.
My unit’s wheels burned rubber. I was halfway out onto the street when, suddenly, another Cadillac, bigger than the first, shot out from around the same corner behind me. It roared onto Central in hot pursuit of the first guy.
“What the hell,” I said out loud and cranked the wheel. When I glanced back, I saw that the second guy was zooming right at me, on a collision course. He was going to broadside me.
I hit the brakes-hard.
At the last second, he swerved. The Cadillac fishtailed as it flew past me, just missing by a millimeter. It spun around, rolled to one side, up on two wheels, and slammed down, totally out of control. The big boat did a brodie, sideways, and smashed into a solid-steel light pole. It instantly burst into flames.
My car was five feet away, skidding wildly, heading directly for the ball of fire. I stood on the brake pedal and stopped inches from the smashup. I could see a man inside the burning wreck scraping at the window in a vain effort to get free.
Instinctively, I tore the riot gun from its bracket and bolted out of the patrol car. With the butt of the gun, I smashed the Caddie’s window, reached into the flames and yanked the guy free.
I didn’t know my strength, but I dragged him away just as the automobile exploded.
The percussion knocked us both to the ground. I stayed there a moment, panting. Then I crawled over to the guy, who was lying on his back, motionless, two feet away. I did a quick inventory of his body parts. He seemed to be all there, and he seemed to be coming around.
He sat up and shook his big head. With his wiry hair still smoldering, he focused on me.
The guy blinked a couple of times and said, “Hey there, buddy. How ya doing? Sol’s my name.” He held out his right hand. “What’s yours?”
There was something about the guy. It wasn’t the way he looked-bitty little legs, a huge barrel chest, and a round smiling face-that made me laugh. No, that wasn’t it at all. It was his attitude, How ya doing, buddy. The guy was just in a horrible smashup, his car on fire, a total loss, and he had almost been killed. His hair was still smoking, for chrissakes, and he asks me how I’m doing!
I started to laugh, and so did he. In fact, we laughed all the way to Downey as I drove him home. Being a cop, I was supposed to have taken him in and booked him on a dozen violations of the California Vehicle Code, but I didn’t do that. I did what he asked me to do. I drove him home.
The next day, after drawing a thirty-day suspension, I went to my place to sulk, and when I got there I found a brand new color TV resting on my front step. There was no note. But it had a big red ribbon around it with a tag that said, “For Officer O’Brien.”
I knew I could keep it, and I knew it was a gift from Sol. I had his address, so it was a simple matter of getting his phone number. I called. He wouldn’t admit that he sent the TV, but he invited me to lunch. I don’t know why, but I accepted.