It was a Tuesday, mid-September in the Imperial Valley, forecast for 116 degrees Fahrenheit. Five days since I whupped those six flyweights in their matching silver helmets, less than half a mile from here. My rib laughed at me as I worked myself into the burrow. The lump on my forehead smarted under my breezer, the sweat burned into my stitches, but the coffee and smoke made me think of Fallujah — a vast, palm-lush, and hostile beauty.
My telescope was a gift from Justine. We’d spent some long and pleasant hours with it on new-moon nights, out in the hills beyond the pond, spying on the heavens. It’s a powerful thing, and with the tripod legs pulled in and pushed well into the sand, the heavy scope was stable.
My foxhole was on a rise. Paradise Date Farm coalesced into startling detail before me: the main house and the large hangar. The red barn and the packing house and the cottages, all in their loose circle. Three silver Expeditions with the SNR Security logo on the doors were parked neatly outside the main house. Six cars stood in front of the long bunkhouse, windows cracked to defer the heat, half of them outfitted with children’s car seats. A few more waited in carports alongside the cottages.
Four dark men loaded wicker baskets and ropes and boxes into the trucks. Long-sleeved shirts and ball caps. They stacked ladders in a long-bed dually, the faint clang of equipment and their voices reaching me across the still, dry air.
Through the open roll-up doors of the metal hangar I saw a row of ATVs, a Bobcat, and two full-sized John Deere tractors, all clean and well tended. Conversing just inside the door were three men wearing the same desert camouflage as the San Onofre guards, and a fourth man in tan slacks and a black golf shirt. He was tall, muscled, and blond, and seemed to have some rank on the uniforms. Hair longer on top and short on the sides, same as Daley Rideout’s guardians. One of whom had shot Nick Moreno in his bed at point-blank range.
A moment later, Adam Revell came through the front door of the main house with an American flag tucked under one arm. The screen door tapped shut behind him. He wore the same blue guard uniform he’d worn to Alchemy 101 the night we’d become friends. He cut in front of two of the harvest workers as if they didn’t exist, on his way to the flagpole that stood not far from the front porch. Then hoisted the flag adroitly, keeping it from touching the ground. Inside the hangar, the men turned to watch, one of the camouflage uniforms saluting casually.
At eight sharp, a very old white pickup truck came to a stop at the speaker console outside the main gate. The truck was mine. I’d accepted it for payment from a neighbor whose missing cat I had located last year around Christmas. Looking for that animal had cost me some valuable hours, and in the end the cat had actually located me. Oxley. My neighbor really loves Oxley, and their reunion was moving. The not-quite-derelict truck had been sitting in my barn ever since, battery disconnected and covered by a tarp. It was old and beaten, but big enough to carry the tools of Burt’s new trade: ladders, buckets, commercial sponges big as bread loaves, squeegees, extension poles, glass cleaner concentrate, rags, rags, rags. Grandpa Dick had once been a commercial artist and early in his career had done signage. He had used light-gray paint to give the door stencil a weathered and authentic look:
I watched the dust settle as the window went down. Saw Burt punching away at the keypad, his white painter’s cap tilted up cheerfully. Frank sat next to him, staring impassively out at a vast desert so unlike his Salvadoran home. Burt talked into the intercom. We had predicted that getting past the gate would be easy. But getting a go-ahead to start work would be trickier.
What I’ll say, Roland, once I’m in, is somebody from SNR Security called and told me to get out to this hellhole and wash the windows. I drove eighty miles and I’m not turning around now. Look at your damned windows. Might have to charge you the extra-duty rate. How would I know who called? The boss says where to go, that’s where I go. And I don’t come back without his money. This is cash or check, I’m sure you were told.
Burt rolled up his window and the gate arm rose. That smile of his. Frank said something and smiled, too.
The old white truck came bouncing into the compound and parked outside the main house. Two camo-clad SNR men approached it, one at each door. Burt slid out, cowboy boots puffing up the dust. Burt believes that his shortness gives him an advantage over most people in most situations. Says it has to do with uncertainty. Animals love him, especially dogs and horses. Francisco didn’t move.
Muscle Blond from the hangar strode across the yard. Burt swung out his hand, but the man refused to take it. They appeared to introduce themselves. They were soon joined by a man and woman who came from the house. Pistols on their hips. The couple looked late twenties, he in jeans and work boots and a rolled-up plaid shirt. Tattooed forearms. The woman had a rural look — tight jeans and cowboy boots and a chambray work shirt. Yellow hair brushed up into a flattop.
A shadow crossed the ground in front of me. When I looked up, my rib screamed with pain, but there was no drone, only a large raven dipping in for a look at this strange human.
I sipped some more coffee, let my heart slow back down. Tried to think of something pleasant and drew a Penelope Rideout card. Penelope at my table in the candlelight, looking at PI Ford, only half covertly. I put that card back into the deck and shuffled. Came up with ten years of a faked marriage to an invented man. To keep the vultures away. It made some sense, but not enough. I could see it, but I couldn’t see it. I didn’t think I’d gotten to the truth of her yet. Only her beguiling surfaces.
By then, Burt was wrangling with Muscle Blond, Flat-Top Woman, and Tattooed Forearms, all at once. They loomed over him. He faced them, arms out, stubby fingers spread, his surprisingly big head turned up to them like a kid arguing with grown-ups. Muscle Blond shook his head decisively, Tattooed Forearms argued, and Flat-Top Woman set her hands on her hips. Burt gestured toward the house and appeared to curse.
Then drew his phone, dialed, and held it out to Tattooed Forearms, who wouldn’t take it. Neither would Muscle Blond or Flat-Top Woman.
Burt looked up at each of his opponents as he waited for his call to go through. Then he was talking again, fast. He paced, checked his watch. Listening and nodding.
After a minute of this he gave the phone to Muscle Blond, who reluctantly put it to his ear, said little, then rang off. He tossed the phone to Burt and walked toward the hangar, throwing up his hands.
Which is when I saw the roaring lion’s head tattooed on his palm.
Burt snatched his phone midair, jammed it into a back pocket, turned, and waved Frank from the truck.
Grandpa Dick Ford at Imperial Window Cleaning, an occasionally foul-mouthed geezer and not to be trifled with, had apparently spoken his piece.
17
They worked unhurriedly from building to building, carefully bracing the tall ladders, bearing down with dripping sponges, drying their squeegees between strokes. One of the uniformed guards followed them from wall to wall, watching for funny business, but was called away by cell phone just before the high square windows of the hangar were finished. Burt waved to him and called down as he walked off, and the guard waved back. Burt pulled a dry shop cloth from his pants pocket to scour out the dried-on bugs and conceal his phone while he took pictures through the glass.
When he climbed down, I saw a wasp nest stuck to the wall up near the eaves, where Burt had been window washing: Clevenger’s handiwork, not a nest but a motion-activated video camera that could live-stream back to us through satellite and cell signals. Clevenger was a former Irregular, an Emmy-winning nature documentarian, a terrible Ping-Pong player, but a good man. He was working on a wasp segment for Spy in the Wild. When I told him about the beating I’d taken at a mysterious date farm in pursuit of a missing fourteen-year-old, Clevenger had insisted we take four of his handmade video cameras for a better look around. And a dedicated laptop to receive the feeds. No charge.