They then powered north over the Painted Canyon and northwest toward Thousand Palms. They flew back into Palm Springs and up the sheer rock face over Andreas Falls where Frank Capra filmed part of Lost Horizon, and into local canyons on the theory that the kidnappers were being truthful about being “close by.” Pigasus soared west to the Palm Springs tram, showing off for the tourists on the tram car, then veered north toward the Little San Bernardino Mountains with their canyons and hiding places and desert accessible only to four-wheel-drive vehicles.
The air show was mostly cosmetic for the benefit of Victor Watson, and because Pigasus enjoyed scaring the living shit out of the F.B.I. agent who was turning green from the mini-aerobatics. There were lots of red pickup trucks in a valley this large and even more that appeared to be red from the sky, and lots of others that were not quite red but could appear to be so when seen at ground level by an overheated seventy-eight-year-old Las Palmas gentleman with trifocals.
In the desert you don’t get very much mileage from your fuel. When you’re walking, that is. You can get about ten good miles out of your body if you fill your body tank with a gallon of water. You get lots less if you’re wearing a navy-blue police uniform and Sam Browne, lugging a 9mm pistol and a hideout gun in a leg holster. Especially if you have a severely sprained ankle and don’t know diddly about the desert in the first place.
When O. A. Jones got so hot and tired he was about to drop, he plopped down prone and breathed through his mouth on the desert floor, which was about 25 degrees hotter than it would be one foot off the ground. When he could gather up the strength to continue, O. A. Jones ignored the many desert birds that would give a rat like Beavertail Bigelow a clue to water holes. He knew nothing of quail flying toward water in the late afternoon, and had never noticed all the times he shot at doves that they also flock toward water holes in the late afternoon and evening. He didn’t know of indicator plants-sycamore, willow, cattail, cottonwood-where he might dig. He staggered right past a limestone cave that contained a large pool of cool clean water. He made a painful detour because he was scared of encountering a mountain lion, though one hadn’t been seen in those parts for thirty years.
O. A. Jones was having some very troubling thoughts: If only summer hadn’t come so early this year. If only he’d stayed in Laguna Beach where he grew up. If only he hadn’t got all hyped about the kidnapping of the rich guy’s kid. If only he hadn’t taken that trail off into the canyon because he thought he saw a campfire. If only everything would speed up so he wasn’t seeing birds fly in slow motion. If only his arms and legs weren’t tingly. If only he weren’t turning bluer than his uniform.
Then O. A. Jones heard it: the music. And he thought, This is it! Fucking harps and angels! Then he heard it again. It was a banjo! Somebody was playing the banjo and singing!
O. A. Jones lurched to a stop and listened. He didn’t know how confusing sound can be out there as it bounces off canyon walls and ricochets like a rifle shot, especially if your body temperature is up four degrees and climbing. O. A. Jones heard what sounded like a car engine starting up. O. A. Jones started hobbling in slow motion on his swollen ankle. The wrong way.
Meanwhile, Victor Watson, with an F.B.I. agent monitoring, had received his second telephone call from the woman, who this time was calling from a place that offered no sound clues. She instructed Victor Watson to obtain $250,000 in tens and twenties and pack it inside a large suitcase. He was told to drive his white Mercedes on a circuitous route that made no sense whatever to the Palm Springs police who were playing second banana to the feds. He was to head out Whitewater Canyon, then to double back on Highway 10, then up Route 62 toward Devil’s Garden, then back toward North Palm Springs. It was apparent that if the kidnappers were watching the drop car they’d need an aircraft to do it, and the only aircraft in the skies that day were commercial flights out of Palm Springs and choppers belonging to law-enforcement agencies. Victor Watson was ordered to call home at precise twenty-minute intervals, which was impossible given the desolate stretches up toward Little San Bernardino Mountains and back again.
After a third call the kidnappers stopped dicking around. Mrs. Watson received it while her husband was gone. She was ordered by the woman to tell Victor Watson when he called to drive out Highway 10 to the Thousand Palms turnoff, then to proceed north to the oasis by Dillon Road.
As it turned out, the kidnappers weren’t kidnappers at all. They were a pair of drifters named Abner and Maybelle Sneed, who usually made their living growing pot in Oregon but had migrated south after the law started applying so much heat to the Oregon plantationers. They had stopped in Palm Springs for a three-day holiday, heard on the news about the disappearance of Jack Watson, and gone to the library to look through a copy of the “Gold Book,” Palm Springs’s Who’s Who. Then they’d stopped at the pharmacy nearest to the Watson residence, and while Maybelle Sneed kept the pharmacist busy, Abner grabbed the Rolodex from behind the register and found customer Victor Watson’s phone number. It was all done in about 120 seconds by people with 75 I.Q.’s, this after Victor Watson had spent more than $15,000 for intruder alarms and sophisticated protection.
The only surprising move made that day by the would-be extortionists was that Abner rented a motorcycle and was lying in wait near Pushawalla Palms for the Watson Mercedes to pass north. The plan was to scan the skies for cops, and if it looked okay, to whip on out the highway, overtaking Victor Watson and holding up a sign that said: “Toss out the money and you will be told where your boy is.”
Abner and Maybelle were very fine pot farmers, diligent and fair to customers. They took pride in their product and refined it carefully, putting it up like grandma’s peaches, with jars, rubber gaskets and labels. But they were not kidnappers and were lousy extortionists. Abner scanned the skies for aircraft with a pair of brand-new binoculars, but never even thought about a radio transmitter in the Mercedes that was signaling the feds hovering far beyond his line of sight.
Just after Abner roared up on the Honda and made contact with the Mercedes, a signal from Victor Watson brought Pigasus driving in. Moments after Victor Watson threw the suitcase from the car window, the F.B.I. agent had Abner, the failed extortionist, in his scope sight.
Meanwhile, Maybelle was waiting at a date bar on Dillon Road. It was one of those roadside shacks that sell Coachella Valley dates and date candy and date milk shakes. Maybelle was on her third date milk shake when she spotted Abner roaring up on the Honda, all dust and teeth and giggles, the suitcase balanced across the handlebars. While Maybelle fired up the family sedan, Abner scooted west to the side trail and ditched the rented Honda behind a tamarisk tree where he tried to open the locked suitcase.
“Abner, git in the fuckin car!” Maybelle hollered with her squeaky little voice. “We’ll open er later!”
But Abner couldn’t wait to see what $250,000 looked like and he started cussing at Maybelle as though it were her fault that the bag was locked.
“We gotta git!” Maybelle squeaked, jumping out of the car and running toward the tamarisk tree where Abner was banging on the suitcase like the gorilla in the Samsonite luggage commercial.