Neither of us mentioned what a huge failure the day had been.
I glanced at Sol, who sat quietly with a chilled gin martini in his hand. “Sol, this whole affair borders on the absurd. A religious nut in cahoots with a gang of neo-Nazi thugs imprisoning teenaged kids in the middle of the Mojave Desert.”
“Aw, Jimmy,” he said, and took a small sip of his drink. “Realism and absurdity are often similar in the lives of overzealous true believers, but Moran is more than that. He’s a smart son-of-a-bitch, and he’s got some kind of scheme working. But now we’ve forced his hand. Moran is not going to sit on his ass while you run around looking for Robbie. He’s gonna act. You can bet on it. We’ve gotta come up with a new approach.”
I didn’t like the sound of that. “What do you mean?”
“Don’t worry about it, my boy. We’ll think of something.”
I thought about the dairy truck still backed up to the dock, riddled with bullets. “Van Hoek is going to be pissed,” I said.
“Who gives a damn about the truck? Van Hoek will send somebody to get it.” Sol paused, then added ominously, “But I am concerned about the gun.”
“Steve at Mathew’s Gun Shop always gave me a good deal when I was a cop. I’ll get you a new one.”
“Damn it, that’s not the point. The bad guys have the gun now. It’s not registered, can’t be traced, but I’m trying to remember if you handled it.”
I stared out the window, silently watching the Joshua Trees that grew by the thousands out on the bleak wasteland drifting by. The Mormons named the species Joshua because they thought the cactus mimicked the Old Testament prophet waving them, with upraised branches, on toward the Promised Land. They gestured at me now, but they weren’t guiding me to any Promised Land. They waved and laughed. You’re an idiot, Jimmy. First that ridiculous milkman routine and now the gun with your fingerprints all over it. Shimmering in the desert heat, a vivid image formed. Ben Moran came to life holding Sol’s.45 by the trigger guard. I knew for a fact I hadn’t seen or heard the last of him or the last of the gun that he’d dropped into the pocket of his bib overalls.
Earlier, as the Deacon tended my wounds, Sol had insisted that when we get back to Downey he was going to have a doctor check me out. I told him I’d be fine, that I was tired of doctors. I just needed some rest.
“No way,” he said. “Forget about the bruises, but the bullet wound… you could get an infection. I would’ve stopped at the emergency room in Barstow, but the doc there would have reported it to the police, and from what you tell me, the chief is involved up to his fat ass with Moran and the Rattlesnake Gun and Torture Club.” He paused, lit a cigar, and continued: “I’m taking you to my guy, a doc who owes me. He won’t report a thing.”
“Sol, maybe it’s time we turn it all over to the state police,” I said.
“Are you crazy? You’re still not off the hook for Hazel Farris’ murder. Nobody would believe you. Besides what do we have? The FBI cleared the gun club. It would be your word against the chief of police. And besides, how long do you think Jane would live if the word got out about a police investigation? Let’s wait until we have absolute proof. Then somehow we’ll take them down.”
“I see your point. But what are we going to do?”
“We’ll figure it out later. After you’ve rested, after the doc gets through with you.”
“What kind of doc is this guy, anyway?” I asked.
“He’s good,” Sol said. “He’s got penicillin and everything,”
“Sol, what kind of doctor is he?”
“A vet. So what? If he can stitch up a snarling Rottweiler, he ought to be able to handle you. Do me a favor, though.”
“Yeah, I know. Don’t bite the guy.”
It wasn’t long before we arrived at Doc Tully’s Animal Clinic in Pico Rivera. I stripped out of the bloodstained milkman uniform, put on one of the doc’s lab coats, and sat on a stainless steel table holding my arm above my head while the doc finished his Frankenstein stitch job.
When Tully was through, he gave me a handful of pink pills that looked as if they could choke a horse. Maybe they could, but he explained how I was supposed to break them up and take a quarter of one every six hours. I put the pills in my pocket. I’d take the first dose after I had my oats.
By the time we left his office, I was starting to feel weak again. I wondered if I’d ever get out of this mess. But all I wanted at that moment was to get to my apartment and ask Rita to bring me some of Foxy’s wonderful, therapeutic chicken soup.
The Deacon and Cubby practically carried me back to the limo. Sol was talking on his mobile radiophone when Cubby opened the passenger door and I slid into the back seat.
Sol said, “Ten-four,” and cradled the receiver. He turned to me. “Jimmy, we’re taking you to a safe house. Don’t argue, because it won’t do any good. I don’t want to take any chances. No telling about Moran and his goons.”
I was too beat to argue. I didn’t care where he took me. All I wanted was to eat some soup and lie down. “Okay, Sol.” I glanced at my watch: just after four in the afternoon. Rita would still be at the office. She could bring the soup to the safe house.
“Sol, can you get my office on the horn, please?”
He didn’t respond. Cubby started the car and we drove out of the parking lot, heading south on Rosemead.
“Sol, I’ve gotta call the office. I want to talk to Rita.”
He just glanced at the floor of the limo. “Don’t push it, Jimmy.” My pulse quickened. “Sol, something is wrong!”
“Calm down, my boy, it’s nothing like that.”
“What’s the matter? Damn it, Sol, I’m talking to you.”
“Don’t get hot. Rita’s a trifle upset, that’s all.” A crooked grin appeared on his face. “You know how women can get.”
“What do you mean a trifle upset?”
“Well, Mabel said she just quit. She doesn’t want to have anything to do with you.”
“What the hell?”
“She said she can’t be your lawyer anymore. Can’t trust you. Mabel told her you got a little worked over out at the base.”
“Goddammit, how’d Mabel know?”
He shrugged. “Ah, well, I might have said something.” Then he perked up. “Hey, you want I should get Morty to take your case?”
“Oh Christ, Sol. Call my office.”
The limo turned left onto Artesia Boulevard and soon we were in Dairy Valley, a city of milk barns and cow shit. The smell complemented my mood.
CHAPTER 33
Sol’s safe house wasn’t a house at all, but a barn. To be precise, it was a one bedroom suite-kitchenette, small bedroom, sitting room with an old-fashioned console TV-built into the middle of a milk barn. Long rows of stalls, each a rectangle four feet by eight feet and each loaded with a Holstein cow, hid the entrance to the suite. Hooked up to the cows were milking machines with suction nozzles and long hoses, contraptions that made loud slurping and clanking noises, a mechanical cacophony mingled with the occasional moo.
Sol ran around the suite like a bellboy, opening doors, adjusting the thermostat; he even turned on the TV. “Welcome to the Holstein Hilton, Jimmy.”
“Yeah, rooms with a moo.”
“A Guernsey getaway.”
“No bull.”
I agreed to stay in the so-called safe house until I felt better, a couple of days at most. Sol’s men would secure my apartment, setting up an alarm system and attaching professional deadbolt locks on my door. Who knew-Moran might attempt to follow through on his sentence of death. As Sol had said, “He’s a real badass, makes Attila the Hun look like a nun. His boys might try something rash.”
The barn stood on Herman Van den Berg’s farm in the community of Dairy Valley, twenty miles east of downtown L.A. The town, established by milk farmers, was set up to protect their lands against the encroachment of urban sprawl. But the sprawl went on unabated, devouring everything in its path like molten lava, an eruption of tract houses and strip malls. Now it had already been decided that the dairies would be closed, the cows hauled to Chino, joining others that had been relocated from South Gate, Norwalk, and Downey years earlier. Dairy Valley would then be a memory, and what was left of the community would be merged into the city of Cerritos, its nearest neighbor to the north.