I got in the van, started up, and wished I’d gagged him. The man never shut up.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
I had only a couple of minutes to ponder the next problem: stop for Marie or leave her behind? The safe choice was to leave her. She’d be mad, real mad, but she’d get over it. However, without a doubt, I needed help to pull off this caper I’d planned. I would just have to keep her on the sideline as much as possible.
I pulled over to the curb on Valley Boulevard where we’d agreed to meet and waited. Street people moved in the dark shadows of the sidewalk, self-absorbed in their own skullduggery. Why wasn’t she at the preplanned location? What happened to her? If only her shadow, I’d recognize her anywhere. Had the FBI tumbled to her game and grabbed her?
Karl Drago worsened my anxiety with his continual complaints. “Hey, dickhead,” he said, “I can’t feel my hands or my feet. Loosen these things up. I lose my hands and my feet, I’ll kill ya with my teeth. You hear me? I’ll tear a chunk outta your neck with my teeth. I got good teeth, courtesy of the California penal system. I’ll rip out your throat and enjoy doing it.”
“For the last time, shut up. And think about what you just said. How are you going to move around if you don’t have any hands and feet, huh? I’ll just have to listen for your electric wheelchair to know when you’re coming.” That shut him up. As he pondered this new problem, I caught a shadow in the rearview mirror dash across Valley. Marie. My tight breathing eased up a little. She came along the sidewalk. I leaned over and rolled down the window on the passenger side. “Right here.”
She heard. Ran over, opened the door, and jumped in just as I pulled away from the curb. She peered into the back. “Everything go okay? This van smells like body odor and cat urine.”
“Sure, we’re cool. I told you it would work. How about you? You okay?”
“Yeah, I got in just like you said.” She held up the badge that hung from the chain around her neck. “But I feel bad. Mary Beth’s really nice, and she’s going to be in a lot of trouble when her boss finds out I duped her.”
“I know, but it can’t be helped.”
We came to the corner of Valley and Sierra Way, a major intersection. Light from all of the combined streetlights poured into the van. Marie looked back to see our cargo. Her hand flew to her mouth. “Oh my God!”
Her tone startled me. “What?” I looked back, thinking maybe Drago had morphed into some sort of demon, more of one than he already was. He hadn’t moved, and I realized she’d reacted to the fat lump of wasted humanity, tattooed and semi-naked in his striped boxer shorts. I said, “Didn’t you see him on the monitor when I took him out of the motel?”
“Yes, but, oh my God, Bruno.”
I waited for the red signal to change so we could enter the San Bernardino Freeway. I looked back again. Drago raised his head and smiled at Marie. “What’s the matter with your slit, hasn’t she ever seen a real man in his underwear?”
Marie turned back in her seat face forward, reached over, and put her hand on my arm.
“How sweet, love among the animals,” Drago said. He sniffed the air, made a show of it. “Fact is, I do smell some animal lovin’. You two been goin’ at it? You two have been bumpin’ uglies, right? I can smell it on you. Come on, give, tell me all the hot sweaty details.”
“He’s a real charmer, isn’t he?” said Marie.
The signal changed, I proceeded to the freeway. “Now you see why I’m not going to mind what we’re going to have to do to him.” I’d said it more for Drago’s benefit than for Marie’s. He went quiet.
“Did you bring the garden shears?” Marie said, smooth as butter.
These words coming from my Marie’s normally innocent mouth shocked even me.
She wasn’t done. “I’m going to enjoy clipping off his toes one at a time. This little piggy went to market, this little piggy-well, you know the routine.”
I’d never worked in San Bernardino County and didn’t know the area. I drove to the only familiar place I knew. I got off at Waterman and headed north into the same mountains. Drago started up again: “How much is Warfield paying you? I told you, I’ll double it. How’d you get me away from the FBI? That was no easy trick.”
“Who’s this Warfield he’s talking about?” asked Marie.
I didn’t answer her.
Drago said, “Right, like I’m going to believe you don’t know the president of the Sons of Satan, Southern California.”
Marie looked at me as I maneuvered the van in a long sweeping turn into the first switchback. She whispered, “Maybe we need to find out how this Warfield figures into this thing.”
I nodded. “Maybe, but in the end, it’s really not going to matter.”
Drago said, “Like I’m gonna believe you don’t know Warfield’s a player in all this. Right. And I’m a Jewish pope. If by some crazy quirk of fate you really are dumber than dirt, and really don’t know Clay Warfield, you two are walking dead. That’s all I gotta say. You’re walking dead, and don’t even know it.”
Drago kept up his verbal barrage until I turned off the asphalt onto the dirt road, then he went silent again. After a few minutes, I felt around for the interior light switch while negotiating the narrowing dirt path. I turned on the interior light. “Look, see if he’s being good.”
I didn’t want two tons of trouble loose, not even for one second. Marie looked back. “Yeah, but his hands and feet are turning a little purple.”
“Damn straight,” Drago said, “I’m not gonna tell you again, loosen these up, or when I do get loose, I’m gonna rip both your heads off and shit down your necks.”
“We’re almost there,” I said, “and if you don’t tell us what we want to know, then it’s not going to matter whether you have feet and hands.”
“I’ll save you two darkies the trouble. I didn’t give it up in the joint where I was locked up with a thousand assholes all wanting what I got. Think about that a minute. You think you’re going to be any different? You think you’re going to be able to get me to talk? You’re outta your little pea brains. I did twenty-five years in the joint without telling a soul. Don’t you think I don’t know what time it is? That once I tell you, Warfield told you to take me off the board? I’m no dummy. So you better listen, I’m not gonna tell a couple of Beavis and Buttheads like you one damn thing. You understand? I’ll take it to my grave if I have to.”
Marie pivoted in her seat. “Fair warning then, the trip to your grave’s going to be ugly, painful, and very noisy with all your screams.”
I leaned over close to her and whispered, “Jesus, Marie, where’s this coming from?”
She didn’t whisper back. “This pile of dog shit is all that’s standing in the way of rescuing three little children and keeping me from getting home to my kids. Hand me those garden shears.”
Who was this new Marie? I had gone bad early in life, broke the law, done things I regretted more and more as I got older. I came back from that place and improved my life. To think Marie was headed down a similar road made me ill. We had to get this thing done and over before she lost that innocence I held so dear. Before it became too late to turn back.
The van bounced as I went around the metal arm that blockaded the fire road. The headlights illuminated the ‘No Trespassing’ sign. One of my cell phones buzzed. I checked. Mack. I didn’t want to talk to him. He could add nothing to what was about to happen. Something I no longer had the stomach for, especially not with my Marie present. Jonas proved that much when I had him out in the same place earlier. Stuck now, we had no choice, and had to play this scenario all the way out. The lack of options made me irritable. I stopped in the exact same place as before and shut off the van. With mountains all around, the darkness closed in. I couldn’t help thinking that we were trapped in a metal box with a wild animal, and I welcomed the opportunity to get out.