The Death and Life of Bobby Z Read online

  The subsequent overdose was just a formality—the period to the sentence.

  Elizabeth washes the lipstick scar from her face, redoes her makeup, then eases into a soft denim blouse, jeans and boots. Brushes her hair out and starts to pack. Although well practiced at packing, she takes almost two hours to clear out the walk-in closet of her things. She has a lot of clothes and anyway it still hurts to move.

  She doesn’t bother to ring for anyone to carry her bags down. All the servants are gone and the house is deathly quiet except for the drone of the television in her room. Some afternoon talk show—she doesn’t even know which it is except that some trailer trash is screaming at some other trailer trash for sleeping with her trailer-trash husband.

  It’s on her second trip out to the car that she sees Brian’s body, or maybe just Brian because it’s possible he’s still breathing.

  He’s just lying there in the courtyard, skin red and body grotesquely swollen, and he looks like he’s been shot with a thousand miniature arrows.

  Next time down she takes a different route to the car.

  It’s a red Mercedes. She puts the last bag in the trunk, sets the radio for some light jazz and drives away. Keeps her head pointed in front of her so only peripherally sees Don Huertero’s men loading the illegals back into the trucks.

  For Lord knows where, she thinks. For Lord knows where.

  She stops on the main road and pulls the car over to look back.

  The black smoke mixes with the rosy-gray sunset, fades into the blackness of the mountains beyond, then disappears into the darkening sky. Fire tops the walls of Brian’s old Arab fort. The orange towers of flame shooting above the parapets remind her of the Arabian doorways. Tear-shaped, almost.

  Beau geste, Brian, she thinks.

  Some funny joke, old pal.

  41.

  Ten days later Tim’s pouring out the last of the Corn Pops into his and Kit’s bowls while they watch a cartoon called Double Dragon, which Kit thinks blows but Tim thinks is at least all right.

  They’re living in the last cabin of eight cedar cabins gathered in a meadow on the western side of the Sunrise Highway on Mount Laguna. Mount Lagunas nowhere near and has nothing to do with the town of Laguna or Laguna Beach, but still it’s enough of an echo of Bobby Z to keep Tim focused on his main problem in life.

  Which is the fact that for all practical purposes he is Bobby Z and Don Huertero is terminally pissed at him.

  At least Mount Lagunas not a desert mountain. It has real fucking trees, for one thing: big tall piñons, cedars, hemlocks and even oaks. Shade trees, and the Knotty Pine cabins—at fifty-seven bucks a week off-season the price is right—sit just off the road flanked by a stand of giant pines. It’s cheap, quiet and private, and the owner doesn’t ask a lot of questions even if he does notice that the customer’s shirt is stained with dried blood. Doesn’t matter, as long as he pays. Also there are no other guests in the other seven cabins, which Tim really likes, so even though it’s kind of a toilet it’s about perfect for him to sit for a while and figure out what to do.

  And it’s like kid heaven for Kit, who’s just out of his skull to be around a man for a change and is really into the “just us guys” thing, and gets to eat as much junk as Tim can buy from the general store about a mile up the hill.

  So it’s been Corn Pops, Pepsi, chocolate milk, hot dogs, peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches, Hormel chili, Dinty Moore beef stew and stacks of frozen pizza, and all the television he wants to watch.

  The kid’s into it.

  He’s also into the spy thing.

  The spy thing is Tim’s version of hide-and-go-seek.

  “We’re playing spies now,” he informs Kit after first getting the key from Macy, the old man who owns the motel.

  “How do you play spies?” Kit asks.

  “First of all, we need different names.”

  “Why?”

  “You can’t be a spy and have your own name,” Tim tells him. “Everyone will know who you are and then you can’t spy.”

  Kit thinks this over and asks, “What’s your name going to be?”

  Tim pretends to think and then says, “How about Tim?”

  “Good.”

  “Who’re you gonna be?”

  “Mike.”

  “Mike?”

  “Mike.”

  “Mike’s good, I like that,” Tim says. “Now the game is that the bad spies are after us and we’re hiding until …”

  “Until what?”

  “Until we can find where the secret formula’s hidden.”

  “Is that our cabin, Tim?”

  “Yes, Mike.”

  “Can I open the door?”

  “How come?”

  “Just want to.”

  “You know how to use a key?”

  “I’m six.”

  “Okay with me.”

  So Kit runs ahead to the cabin, throws open the screen door and struggles with the key until he pushes it open. Tim doesn’t get it that six-year-olds are just crazy about doing that kind of thing, but it’s okay with him.

  The cabin’s small. There’s a kitchen counter with a small stove and an oven, a sitting area with a ratty old couch and a rocking chair, and a bedroom with bunks in it. The bathroom’s big enough to turn around in and has a shower but no bath.

  Place has a TV, though, and it has “Bobby,” which is about all Kit cares about, so he’s happy. And if he has the bloody night in the desert on his mind, he isn’t saying anything about it and it sure isn’t affecting his appetite any the way he puts down pizza and ice cream.

  After about a week Tim’s getting tired of hiking back from the general store with groceries and also figures he’s going to need transportation to find out the next step to being Bobby Z, so he decides to get a car.

  His first thought is to steal one, of course. Hang out by the gas pumps at the general store until some citizen leaves the key in the ignition while they’re inside buying their beef jerky, but then he thinks better of it. It’s a small town—shit, the general store is the town, that and a biker bar across the road—and the victim is bound to see his missing vehicle parked at the Knotty Pine Motel. And the last thing Tim needs is to wind up back in the system where Gruzsa and the Aryan Brotherhood will be happy to greet him.

  And then there’s the kid. What’s going to happen to the kid if I get nailed? Tim wonders. So he goes against his better nature and decides he’d better just buy some old heap.

  And there is an old heap, a plug-ugly lime-green Dodge, been parked in the gravel parking lot since they’ve been there, so Tim tells Kit to finish watching the cartoon and he’ll be back in a few minutes.

  Tim goes to the cabin that serves as an office and says hello to the owner. Macy grunts a hello back and returns to reading The Star newspaper.

  “That old Dodge?” Tim starts.

  “Yeah?”

  “Been parked out there awhile,” Tim says. “You know who it belongs to?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Who?”

  “Me.”

  Fucking old coot, Tim thinks. Has to make this hard.

  “I’m looking for a vehicle myself,” Tim says.

  Old bastard looks up from his paper and says, “Nine hundred.”

  “I don’t want it bronzed,” Tim says. “I’ll take it as is. Give you five.”

  “You won’t give me five,” the old guy says. Sits for a minute, then says, “I’d take eight-fifty.”

  “Yeah, I bet you would.”

  Tim stands for a minute while the guy finishes his article. When he looks up again he doesn’t seem all that thrilled that Tim is still there.

  Tim says, “I’ll give you six.”

  Man thinks about it for a while and says, “I won’t take a check.”

  “I was thinking of cash.”

  Tim doesn’t like saying it and doesn’t like the look in the guy’s eye. Old man running an out-of-the-way dive has to wonder why white trash would have t
hat much cash on him. Wonders where he got it and probably wonders what kind of reward there is on a poor man carrying that kind of cash.

  But it can’t be helped, Tim thinks. We need a car.

  “Go get the cash, I’ll go get the keys,” the old man says.

  Tim reaches into his pants pocket and pulls out six bills.

  “I’ll go get the keys,” the old man says. He goes into the back room and returns a minute later and tosses the keys on the counter. “Pink slip’s in it. You’re not checking out, are you?”

  “Not yet.”

  Tim’s halfway out the door when the old man asks, “You need anything else?”

  “Like what?”

  “Like a gun.”

  Tim doesn’t tell him that he already has a gun, thanks. Tim left the M-16 smashed up under a rock as he came out of the desert, on the theory that even in Southern California it’s hard to hitchhike with an automatic rifle slung over your shoulder. But the pistol, even now, is tucked inside the waistband of his jeans.

  “Why would I want a gun?” Tim asks.

  The old man shrugs. “Protection.”

  That’s what the old geezer says, Tim thinks, but what he means to do is sell Tim a gun so Tim can go rob something else. Long as it’s not him, the old man doesn’t give a shit. Long as it pays the rent.

  “I always have a piece handy for protection,” the old man adds, making sure that Tim knows it’s not okay to rob him.

  Nobody robs their hideout, Tim thinks with disdain. Even asshole Wayne LaPerriere wouldn’t be asshole enough to rob his own hideout.

  “I think the car’s enough, thanks,” Tim says.

  He goes outside, climbs into the driver’s seat and is nicely surprised when the heap starts up first turn of the key. He calls Kit outside to help him check the brake lights, taillights and turn signals, then double-checks the registration sticker and emission-controls stickers. Tim does not want to get pulled over for something stupid.

  Specially as he doesn’t have a driver’s license.

  Kit’s way juiced about the car.

  “Is this a spy car?” he asks.

  “Don’t say it so loud.”

  “Sorry.”

  But there’s a grin all over the kid’s face and Tim decides that the boy leads a rich fantasy life.

  “Let’s take her for a spin,” Tim says. “We need groceries.”

  They go up to the general store to lay in a fresh supply of junk. Tim decides he needs another week or so of quiet to decide just what the hell to do next.

  Also figures it’ll be time to move on soon, before the old man finds a buyer to sell him to.

  Tim’s thinking these weighty matters over as he and Kit put the groceries in the car. Problem is, Tim’s been out of the joint just long enough to let his paranoia get rusty, so he doesn’t notice the biker across the road giving him just that extra-second glance. In all fairness to Tim, it’s cold up on the mountain, there’s still patches of snow on the ground—and the guy’s got an Australian herder’s coat on over his colors.

  The biker notices him, though, although he has to chew on it halfway back to El Cajon before it hits where he knows this guy from. The kid threw him off at first, but then he remembers he has an image of Tim on the yard in San Quentin.

  And because it never hurts to do a good one for the brothers in L.A. he calls one of the clubs up there and a couple of hours later that ugly prick Boom-Boom calls him back.

  “Yeah?” Boom-Boom says, like he’s pissed off he’s been taken away from something more important.

  “Guess who I saw earlier today.”

  “Who?”

  Real bored-like.

  “Tim Kearney,” the biker says.

  Then Boom-Boom gets a whole lot more interested.

  Chatty, almost.

  42.

  Tim figures it’s about time he called the Monk, because life ain’t gonna let him live unless he squares things with Huertero. Piles Kit into the car and they drive up to Julian, about thirty miles away, to make the call.

  They do this because Tim figures it would be a stupid, moke thing to call from the phone booth at the motel, and he’s doing his best to quit being a stupid moke and fuck you, Agent Gruzsa.

  Kit picks up on it, though, when they pull into Julian, which is an old gold-mining town in the mountains that hit the skids and now sells apple pie to tourists. Place still looks like an old western town, though, so the phone booth Tim pulls up to looks out of place.

  “We came here to make a phone call?” the kid asks.

  “Yeah.”

  “Uh, there’s a phone booth at the motel.”

  With that like duh voice kids like to put on.

  “This is a spy thing,” Tim answers. “What if they traced the call?”

  “Cool.”

  “Way cool,” Tim answers. “You wait in the car.”

  “Why?”

  Kid is seriously annoyed. Kid doesn’t want to be left out of any spy action.

  Tim’s about to answer Because I told you to, that’s why, but then remembers his old man and thinks better of it. So he says, “What if you get captured?”

  “Captured?” Kit looks a little pale, like he’s forgotten this is a game.

  “Yeah, captured,” Tim says. “You can’t tell what you don’t know.”

  Which isn’t strictly true, Tim thinks, because he knew lots of guys in jail who were all the time telling the DA’s office things they didn’t know. Usually worked, too, because the DAs always believed them, because it let them jam up some poor jerk they didn’t have enough evidence to convict. Much easier to haul some jailhouse rat in to say, “We were sitting in the jail cell and this guy told me he did it.”

  Anyway, he doesn’t think he should share this miserable fact of life with the kid—who just doesn’t have the soul of a rat anyway—so he repeats, “You can’t tell what you don’t know.”

  The kid bites, saying, “And anyway, someone needs to guard our spy car.”

  “Right.”

  “Look out for bad guys.”

  “Right.”

  “What do the bad guys look like?”

  Tim wants to answer If you don’t see him in your mirror you better assume it’s a bad guy but instead he says, “They’re driving silver cars.”

  “Silver?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Okay,” Kit says seriously, and he gets busy watching out for silver cars.

  Tim goes to the phone and dials the number Elizabeth gave him.

  Tim’s heart is like fucking racing because he doesn’t know who’s on the other end of the line.

  Three rings and a flat voice answers, “Yeah?”

  “Yeah, it’s me,” Tim says.

  Long fucking pause during which Tim thinks maybe he better hang up and race out of there. He’s a heartbeat from exiting stage left when the voice says, “Bobby?!”

  Like he just can’t believe it, right? Like he’s beside himself with fucking joy.

  Like someone’s come back from the dead, huh?

  “Yeah,” Tim says. “Bobby.”

  Then he takes a huge chance.

  “Who’s this?” Tim asks.

  Another pause.

  Run away, Tim thinks. But he hangs on.

  “It’s me, man,” the voice says. “The Monk.”

  The Monk? Tim thinks. The Monk is like the guy, right? Bobby’s right-hand man. Man who knows where everything’s hidden.

  “Good to hear your voice, man.”

  “Good to hear yours,” the Monk says. “Where have you been? Your mother and I have been worried sick about you.”

  “Where haven’t I been, man?”

  “You sound different.”

  Shit. Run away, Tim thinks. Get in the car and drive as far as it’ll take you.

  Which is like maybe El Centro, right? Which just ain’t gonna cut it. Gotta get through this, Tim tells himself, so he makes his voice kind of hip-annoyed and growls, “You’d sound different, too, ma
n, you been where I been. You ever seen a Thai jail, Monk?”

  “I’ve avoided that pleasure so far, babe.”

  Babe. Fuck you, babe.

  “Yeah, well, that’s a good idea,” Tim says.

  “You coming in?”

  “I’m too hot, man.”

  You can like hear the guy thinking over the phone.

  “What do you need?” Monk asks.

  “Cash,” Tim says. “And a new passport.”

  “Ask and ye shall receive.”

  “I’m asking,” Tim says. “I need about twenty K for starters.”

  “You want to meet at the old place?”

  Sure, Tim thinks, except that nobody told me where the old place is.

  “No,” Tim says.

  “Okay, where?”

  Someplace crowded, Tim thinks.

  Someplace I can bring a kid. “The zoo,” Tim says. “The zoo?”

  “San Diego Zoo,” Tim says. “Tomorrow. Two o’clock.”

  “Where, exactly?”

  Tim’s never been there but he figures every zoo’s got elephants so he says, “Outside the elephants.”

  Plus Kit’ll like the elephants, right? Kids like elephants. Tim can hear Monk thinking again.

  Then Monk says, “I’ll bring the stuff in a plastic Ralph’s bag. Can you get one of those?”

  “Sure.”

  “Two o’clock.”

  Tim decides to take another chance. “Also,” he says, “I need some information.”

  “Shoot.”

  “What’d we do to Don Huertero?”

  Using the “we” to drag old Monk into it. Give him more than just a rooting interest.

  And Monk thinks it over for a long time. Unless he’s tracing the number.

  “So?” Tim asks.

  “Nothing I can think of.”

  “Do we have something that belongs to him?”

  “Nothing I know about.”

  “Work on it, huh?” Tim orders. “Talk to you tomorrow.”

  Tim hangs up. If Monk was tracing the number it was time to leave. Also, Kit is hopping up and down in the seat because there’s a silver car coming down the street.

  “Bad guys,” Kit whispers as Tim gets in the car.

  “We’ll have to lose them,” Tim whispers back.