The Death and Life of Bobby Z Page 19

  Funny thing is, the guy’s knees start knocking again.

  Tim thinks this is weird but tots it up to sheer relief on the guy’s part until a gunburst hits Monk square on and the guy folds to the sand.

  Tim doesn’t even think about going for the gym bag, he just hits the deck and crawls like a motherfucker back into the cave.

  Knows instantly why Monk’s knees were knocking. Monk had set him up to leave the cave first. Carrying a gym bag.

  Soul of a Judas.

  Tim wastes a few seconds wondering which of his enemies is out there then decides it doesn’t matter anyway, because in a few seconds they’ll be down to collect the prize and will realize they got the wrong guy and they’ll be coming into the cave.

  Meeting at this cave, Tim thinks again, was a really shitty idea.

  So how the fuck to get out? Tim thinks. Always the question. Part of him starts wanting just to go out the front of the cave blasting away, man. He’s pissed off and he’s like just fucking had it, and if he’s going out he wants to go out like Butch and Sundance, man. Out the front shooting into a blaze of gunfire.

  That’s what he’s feeling building up inside him, but then he told Kit he’d be back, so he stuffs his anger in and starts feeling his way back toward the other end of the cave to see if there’s another way out.

  Feels like a chickenshit as he sneaks toward the back of the cave, which seems pretty solid, and it’s looking like it’s going to be the old Butch and Sundance bit after all when he spots a sliver of moonlight.

  It’s a crack in the cave wall, but it isn’t wide enough to walk through. He edges in sideways and feels the cold salt water come up over his shoes, and then he’s stuck.

  Great, he thinks. This might be the most humiliating fuck-up of a life of fuck-ups, and he tests the side of the wall with one shoe and finds a foothold. Sticks his gun back in his pants, digs in with his other foot, then stretches his arms out akimbo and finds that the cave wall bows outward and he can work his way out by pressing hard against the wall with his hands while working his feet forward.

  It’s taking time, though, and he doesn’t know if he has time, because he hears an angry voice back on the beach yell, “Shit!” and Tim figures that Gruzsa just realized he shot the wrong man and is probably keenly disappointed.

  All of which gives Tim some motivation to press forward, like literally in this case, but then the space narrows and he can’t get through and he hears footsteps running up the rocks on the beach, so he starts seeing if he can climb up.

  Climbing up works but it’s like slow, and he can hear Gruzsa’s cautious footsteps coming into the cave.

  So Tim climbs, trying not to make like a fucking sound. Climbs with his feet dug into the rock and his hands pressing against the sides to hold him up and it like hurts, man, because his arms are just straining.

  Thinks again about just dropping down and shooting it out with Gruzsa, like do a Clint Eastwood thing and be finished with it. Gun-fight in the OK Corral, man, and it’ll just go down the way it goes down but he doesn’t do it. He gets as high as he can and stops. Hangs there like some bat, man, still as he can, his arms quivering now with the strain, and the beam of Gruzsa’s flashlight passing around the cave like the spotlight on the prison yard.

  And through the crack in front of him the moonlight’s shining soft and silvery on the open water.

  Looking like freedom.

  Tim presses his hands harder against the wall. Gruzsa spots him up there, he’ll take like a hundred years not to miss the shot, and Tim wonders now if that’s what happened that night on the border, that Gruzsa was trying to shoot him and fucked up, killed his buddy instead.

  Easy mistake to make at that range at night.

  But why the fuck would Gruzsa want to grease me or Bobby? Right when he was about to make the swap for Art Moreno?

  Doesn’t make any fucking sense, Tim thinks. One thing for sure, Gruzsa won’t miss if he sees this shot. The bullet-head motherfucker will just laugh and call me a moke and bang.

  Dead fucker.

  61.

  One Way is shivering through a serious psychotic episode.

  He has witnessed bursts of flame blaze in the darkness that destroy Bobby’s high priest. Even now the surf begins to lick at the priest’s lifeless body and the crabs left behind by the tide start to click their way toward a fortuitous meal.

  One Way presses himself even tighter against the soft soil of the bluff as the man comes running past, the man holding a gun, the man One Way recalls talking to many times on the streets of Laguna. The man who always seemed legitimately interested in the story of Bobby Z. One Way recognizes the man as the one who would go into a restaurant, emerge with a grilled-cheese sandwich encased in a Styrofoam box and give it to him as encouragement to tell more tales.

  No wonder, One Way thinks now in horror. No wonder the man was so interested.

  One Way is in serious pain. The pain shoots through his brain as if nails were being driven into his skull.

  He has—albeit unwittingly—betrayed Bobby.

  Told this man—this Caiaphas, this Pilate—all about Bobby, and now the man has killed Bobby’s priest and is racing into the cave to kill Bobby.

  And it’s my fault, One Way thinks.

  I have sold Bobby for a grilled cheese—with cottage fries—and a box of nonbiodegradable Styrofoam that lives forever.

  The pain increases.

  One Way knows from whence it comes. It is the pain of guilt, the pain of shame, the pain of failure. It is the pain of paralysis, because One Way cannot bring himself to move. Cannot throw himself from these shadows into moonlight to go and fight for Z. Knows he should race after the man and throw himself on his back. Grab his arm and stay the fatal shot. Take, if necessary, the bullets meant for Z.

  But he’s afraid.

  The pain of fear.

  One Way huddles in the shadow of the bluff, holds himself and rocks in rhythm with the waves. Listens for the shot that surely must echo in the cave, the explosion foreshadowed by the relentless pounding in his brain, and knows that he’ll live with that forever.

  Styrofoam.

  I am so weak, One Way thinks.

  And my weakness betrays Bobby Z.

  Then he feels the voice build inside him, build like a sudden cyclone in his stomach, twirl and twist out of his mouth. He isn’t responsible for it, doesn’t think it, doesn’t will it. It’s happening on its own—not by him but through him. The voice forces itself up through his throat just as his mouth opens and his body unwinds and moves upward like a cyclone coming up from the water.

  And he’s standing—inexplicably on his feet—legs planted in the sand as his voice—bass and treble both to the max—hollers, “I SEE YOU!!!”

  62.

  Tim almost falls, the high-pitched, wailing scream startles him that much.

  Who sees who? he wonders. He doesn’t think that anyone can see him, because if they could he’d have a couple of rounds in him by now, so whoever is screaming out there is either having a serious case of the DTs or is maybe yelling at Gruzsa.

  Apparently Gruzsa thinks so, too, because Tim hears him mutter “Fuck” and start to ginger-foot his way out of the cave the way he came in. So Tim figures if he can hold on in this position for another minute or so, he just might live to fuck up another day.

  Gruzsa, he’s so pissed off and confused he can barely contain himself. For one thing, he’s greased the only guy who could positively nail down where Tim Kearney is. Second, Kearney has apparently disappeared into thin air—a Bobby Z sort of thing to do—because he sure as hell didn’t come out of the cave and he sure as hell isn’t in it, either. And three, some voice comes out of fucking nowhere and starts proclaiming himself as a witness and Gruzsa all of a sudden is thinking he might have to whack not one but two people tonight, and neither of them is Tim Kearney.

  Gruzsa checks his load and starts for the sound of the voice that’s wailing like a siren.

&nb
sp; 63.

  Tim works his way toward the moonlight.

  It’s like some obstacle course only the most sadistic Marine DI could have dreamed up, and Tim’s muscles are maximum-strained and his hands are bleeding by the time he makes it to the edge of the cave and hears a shot from the beach behind him.

  He jumps out onto the beach, which is like water by now, because the frigging tide’s come in. The beach at this little cape is all rock anyway, and Tim slips and falls on the slippery rocks about three hundred times before he comes onto a footpath that leads back up toward the top of the bluff.

  He staggers up, tired and scared because he knows Gruzsa’s on top of him now and he isn’t going to have time to work this thing out. As he works his way through the back streets and along the PCH back toward the trailer, he’s trying to think of the next move.

  The next move is clearly like “out,” man, but the problem is how. As usual in the so-called life of Tim Kearney, the problem is getting out, the exit stage left, and he’s thinking, just bundle Kit up in a blanket or something, see if they can use Elizabeth’s ride and like just drive, man. North or east, because Huertero’s to the south and he’s run out of west. So by the time he gets back to the trailer, he’s made his mind up to do just that. Get Kit and Elizabeth—if she wants to come—and drive toward the Great Plains somewhere. Find some little town in Kansas or something and grow wheat.

  Except that when he lets himself into the trailer, nobody’s home.

  Kit and Elizabeth are gone.

  64.

  Tim’s lost.

  He’s like suddenly free of everything and he doesn’t know what to do. Like Gruzsa’s on fucking top of him again and he has to split and the last fucking thing he needs in the whole wide world is a woman and a kid, but that’s what he wants.

  And they’re gone.

  Gone in a heartbeat, man, because they hardly took shit with them. A few of Kit’s clothes and his toothbrush, that’s all, and the kid’s comic books are still in a pile beside his bed.

  Elizabeth’s makeup sits by the bathroom sink.

  Tim wants to just sit down and fucking cry, man.

  Go out and drop onto the beach and howl his pain to the moon. Howl until Gruzsa comes up behind him and puts a round in the back of his head.

  Maybe Gruzsa’s already got ’em, he thinks. Gruzsa comes back up the beach and figures if he can’t get Tim he’ll get Tim’s family. Call Tim up and cut a new deal. Gruzsa’d do that. The DEA would do fucking anything.

  He knows he should split, too.

  Take off and don’t look back like now, because maybe Elizabeth split for some reason other than he’s a hopeless dickhead. Maybe she got scared and ran, maybe they’ve tripped onto the place and he’s a sitting duck if he doesn’t get out.

  But he’s in that give-a-fuck state of mind, so he doesn’t take off. What lifelong loser Tim Kearney does is he opens the fridge and pulls out three cervezas. Holds the necks between the fingers of one hand and goes and sits on the beach. Watches the silver flicker on the water, drains the beers and goes back in for the survivors of the six-pack and a bottle of tequila.

  Takes the phone out with him in case they call.

  But knows they’re not going to call, so he’s out there trying to actually drink himself to death—your basic lack of impulse control—and doing a pretty good job of it.

  He’s lying there on the beach, looking up at the stars and he’s laughing at himself for thinking that he could have his little family of Elizabeth and Kit and him in some Lassie Come Home town in the Midwest. Just laughing his ass off that loser Tim Kearney, All-World Fuck-Up, All-Universe Loser, could pull that off, he’s just laughing till he cries and cries until he passes out. Comes to when an acrid foul smell jolts him awake. When he opens his eyes there’s this goat bending over him grinning at him.

  He smells the goat before he sees him, just smells this smelly old goat, so he opens his eyes and, sure enough, this goat’s staring down at him and Tim’s wondering what’s a goat doing in Laguna Beach like unescorted when the goat starts to talk.

  “Bobby?” the goat asks. “Bobby Z?”

  Tim sees it’s not really a goat but a person who looks and smells like a goat.

  “I’m not fucking Bobby fucking Z,” Tim says.

  “Yes, you are.”

  “Not.”

  “Are.”

  “Leave me the fuck alone.”

  But the guy starts picking him up, getting underneath his arms and saying, “We have to get you out of here.”

  “My kid and my woman split,” Tim says. “I’m going to die here.”

  “Right, you’re in danger,” the guy says, and he manages to get under Tim and lift him. Starts dragging him across the beach. He drags Tim to the base of the bluffs where they’re out of sight and plops him down.

  “You’ve gained weight, Bobby,” he complains.

  “Who are you?” Tim asks.

  “I don’t remember exactly,” One Way says. “But they call me One Way.”

  “You’re the acid casualty,” Tim says.

  “That’s what they say,” One Way admits. “They think I’m crazy.”

  “You look like a lunatic.”

  “I am a lunatic,” One Way says. He pauses with a poet’s dramatic timing. “But I know things.”

  “What do you know?”

  One Way’s eyes flick up and down the beach. Then his eyes sparkle in the moonlight and he smiles a sly, snaggletoothed grin.

  “I know,” he says, “where your unfaithful priest hid your treasure.”

  65.

  On a boat, One Way tells him.

  “Which boat?” Tim asks.

  There are only about twelve thousand in the marina.

  One Way blinks his eyes rapidly.

  “The boat,” he says mysteriously.

  “And the boat is called …”

  “The Nowhere,” One Way whispers. “A square-rigged sloop moored in Dana Point Harbor. I watched him bring the money there.”

  “He’s dead,” Tim says.

  “I know,” One Way answers. “I heard everything. Well, almost everything. The rest the moon told me.”

  “Sure it did,” Tim says. “This is the money Monk ripped off from Don Huertero?”

  “If you say so.”

  “My kid is gone,” Tim cries. “My kid and my woman.”

  “We’ll get them back,” One Way says soothingly.

  “How?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Great.”

  “But we will.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because you’re Bobby Z,” One Way says.

  One Way takes the blanket from his shoulders and wraps it around Tim. He lifts Tim’s head and puts it in his lap and cradles him as he says, “Because you’re Bobby Z and the child is your son. Or your daughter. Whatever. You have a woman and a child and that’s life’s sacred rhythm. Endless, repetitive, like the beat of the ocean, which is like you, Z. They can’t stop the beat of the ocean. The surf will rise and crash, life will be born from water. You glide on the ocean, man. From it you spring and to it you shall return.”

  He strokes Tim’s head and intones, “To it you shall return. With your wife. With your son. Or daughter. Whatever.”

  Then the phone rings.

  66.

  Tim picks up the receiver and just listens, praying it’s her. Just wants to find out Where is my kid, is like my kid all right? He thinks he hears her breathing over the phone and knows she’s doing the same thing, wondering who’s on the other end of the line.

  She jumps in first.

  “Hello?”

  “Is Kit okay?”

  “Yes.”

  “Are you okay?”

  “Yes.”

  But it sounds tentative. He reads in her voice like I’m okay now, but like he can feel Gruzsa in the background, sitting behind her, smirking … So he waits for her to go on.

  “They have us,” she says.<
br />
  “Who does?”

  “Don Huertero.”

  “How’s the boy?” he repeats. Because he thinks he knows what’s coming.

  “Scared but all right,” she says. “He’s a tough kid, you know.”

  “Yeah, I know.” Tough little monkey. The kid like shows you something.

  “If you don’t come,” Elizabeth says, “they say they’re going to kill him.”

  “I’ll come.”

  “They’ll—”

  “I know,” he says. “Tell them I’ll come. Tell them I have their fucking money. I’m giving it back.”

  He hears her start to talk to someone and then the someone gets on the line.

  “Bobby Z?”

  “Yeah,” Tim says. “Is this Don Huertero?”

  “Never mind who this is,” the guy says. Mexican accent, but sounds rougher to Tim than Don Huertero should. “You come or we kill the kid.”

  “Where are you?”

  “Fuck you,” the guy says. “You think we’re stupid?”

  “I can’t meet you if I don’t know where you are.”

  “You got the money?”

  “I got it stashed.”

  “Somewhere near the money,” guy says. “Somewhere quiet.”

  “Hold on.”

  Tim holds the phone close to his shirt and asks One Way for a quiet spot with a good view of the boat.

  “The Arches,” One Way tells him. “Park at the end of Blue Lantern Street. Take a left on the Bluffside Walk. Down a slope, across a wooden bridge over the canyon. Three concrete arches, all that’s left of a luxury hotel got half built before the crash of 1929. You can see the boat from there. You can see everything.”

  Tim tells the guy and says he’ll be there in an hour.

  “In the morning,” the guy says. “We’re meeting you nowhere at night. People get dead they approach you in the darkness, Bobby Z.”

  Tim wants to talk to Kit but the Mexican hangs up.

  “They have Kit,” Tim tells One Way. “They say they’ll kill him.”

  “We’ll save him,” One Way says. “We’ll give them the money and then …”