A Stranger Lies There (28 page)

“Let's go talk to your neighbors,” I suggested, as we got out of the car. I surveyed the surrounding area with my hand over my eyes, squinting under the pulsating sun. The brilliant surface of the desert glared white hot in the clear air. Nothing to disturb the awful clarity other than the occasional clouds of dust being kicked up by the roaming winds. They quickly departed though, scattered by those same winds, leaving only the unrelenting heat and blinding sunlight. It burned away all nuance and pretension like a shower of X-rays laying bare the desert and everything in it. I felt Cat watching me from behind, and the heat radiating up from the ground, through my shoes and into my bones.

A bead of sweat dripped into my eye, stinging, and I wiped it away before turning back to Cat. “You still want to help me out right?”

“Yeah, no problem. I gotta do something first though.” She disappeared into her trailer, behind a door squeaking on rusty hinges. I heard her rummaging around in there, talking to herself as she shuffled around. The unbalanced trailer rocked with her movements.

She eventually came out with a jar of peanut butter in one hand and a big smile on her face. “I found it,” she announced, waving an envelope in the air before stuffing it in her pocket.

“Found what?”

“My government money. I knew if I looked hard enough it would turn up.”

“And you're celebrating with a jar of peanut butter?” I kidded her.

Cat looked down at it, frowning. “No. I just like it.”

I hadn't meant to make fun of her. I quickly changed the subject. “So who are we talking to?”

“Whoever you want.” She stuck her finger in the jar, scooped out a thick gob and licked it off, smacking her lips as she did so. “I know a lot of people here.”

“Okay. Why don't we start over there.” I pointed to a dusty group of camper shells and trailers ringed together like an Old West wagon train. Camouflage netting covered the open area inside, providing spotted shade underneath. Two mangy-looking dogs sprawled in the meager shade beneath a wooden table. They watched us, ears raised and alert, tongues hanging out. The table was covered with an assortment of items: water- and sun-damaged paperback books, their pages splayed outward stiffly; rusty old kitchen utensils; several cracked Pez dispensers; a pair of headphones with rotted earpads; and a black plastic rotary-dial phone. Third world flea market stuff.

The first door we knocked on brought only a gruff, “Go away.” Cat shrugged and led me to the next one, banged on the window as she passed the trailer.

“Hey, Einstein,” she said, reaching for the door handle. She struggled with it briefly before the door opened, then looked inside. “Nobody home,” she said, pushing the door closed with her shoulder.

“Einstein?”

“He can do all this math in his head. We get along pretty good.”

A middle-aged woman appeared near one of the camper shells, stooped over as she walked under the forward bed. She held a little boy's hand. They both wore sandals and shorts, the woman with a loose tank top and the youngster, maybe four, shirtless. He stuck his thumb in his mouth when he saw us.

“How many times I gotta tell you?” his mother said, grabbing his wrist and taking the thumb out.

“Hey, Bernie,” Cat said. “Where is everybody?”

“The cave, I guess. Kris got some gas.” She gestured over to the table we'd walked by earlier. “See anything you like?”

“I was thinking about those headphones. But the plug thing is too big.”

“You read, mister? I got books.”

“No thank you,” I said, looking at Cat. She asked Bernie if she knew of any strangers passing through recently.

Bernie shook her head no. Picked up the kid and brushed his hair back with her hand. It fell right back down on his forehead. He was staring hungrily at Cat's jar of peanut butter. “But you know how I keep to myself. So don't go by me.”

Cat told her to take it easy, and we moved on.

“What's the cave?” I asked, following her out of the circle.

“I'll show you,” she replied, wiping smears of peanut butter on her shirt. “But first I gotta get this stuff off my hands.”

We came to small ravine just outside the settlement. Below, some hygiene-minded resident had placed an ancient claw-footed bathtub next to a small hot spring bubbling up from the ground. A man sat in the bathtub, poured water over his head from an old cooking pot.

“There she is,” he said happily when he saw Cat, and stood up without a trace of embarrassment. “You coming with me tonight, honey? I'll introduce you to Mr. Bob Hope. Play your cards right, maybe I can get you an autograph.”

Cat laughed, stepped down and dipped her hands into a small puddle. “No thanks,” she said, wringing them dry. “Got a date with Leonard.” The man couldn't help us with Turret, but asked me how much I'd pay for that autograph.

We went on, trudging from campsite to campsite. Slab City was a post-apocalyptic vision to me. Something out of a Mel Gibson movie in which all the players were forced to scrape and scramble for every bit of sustenance, but did so gladly in return for the freedom it offered. People like my new friend Cat, who'd drifted from place to place when the money ran out and the landlord called. Addicts and alkies who'd met kindred spirits and weren't looked down upon for their afflictions. A few had been kicked out of mental hospitals during the Reagan years for not being quite far gone enough. Others had woken up and found themselves here by accident, like sediment that ends up in the lowest place, far below sea level in a forgotten land. A land though, with crystal clear air and no restrictions, bright days and star-filled nights. I could appreciate how one could get used to this. Out here, you could breathe deep, let the vastness and serenity of the desert fill up the empty spaces inside.

Late morning, we met two teenagers who used the slabs as a base of operations for running illegals up from the border near Calexico. They offered us cold Coronas they'd swiped off one of the freight trains going through Niland. Cat was tired, and thirsty from all that peanut butter, so we followed them to their trailer. The bottles were swimming in a cooler of melted ice.

“They call us
coyotes
,” the taller one said proudly, twisting the top off his beer and shaking his long hair back as he drank. Both kids were thin and wiry, with ropelike muscles showing on their arms. They wore dusty jeans low on their hips, and tennis shoes with the laces untied. Neither could have been more than fifteen. “Mikey here got interviewed by some magazine. Took his picture and everything.”

I sipped my beer. It was surprisingly cold. Cat was nursing hers, making it last.

“Got a meal out of it too,” Mikey said.

I said nothing, not wanting to stay too long; they hadn't seen any newcomers either. Above their heads were several small cupboards. No door fronts on them. Boxes of cereal, canned food, and Sterno. A condom wrapper sat next to the pillow on the bed.

“You guys had lunch yet?” Cat asked hopefully.

“I ain't hungry,” Mikey said, not getting the hint. His friend gulped Corona.

“See,” the friend said after wiping his lips, “most people don't know what's involved in our work. Border Patrol has all kind of high-tech stuff. Magnetic motion sensors. Night vision scopes. Shit, I got buzzed by a prop plane the other day, and I wasn't doing nothing. And those four-wheelers they got prowl all the way up to the interstate. Never know where they're gonna be.”

“Gotta know the territory,” Mikey agreed. “Lotta things can happen when you're out there. If the van breaks down, or throws an axle or something, you're screwed. Take your chances in the open desert. Lost one guy that way. Or they get picked up and hauled back across.” He shook his head. “Ain't no picnic, lemme tell you.”

“Pretty dangerous, huh?” Cat said.

“So's a lotta things,” longhair said, turning to Mikey. “Remember that hitchhiker the other day?”

“What hitchhiker?” I asked, leaning forward.

Mikey's beer stopped midway. “You're right,” he told me. “Coulda been the guy you said.”

“Where? Near the prison?”

“Down that way.”

“You pick him up?”

“No,” Mikey's friend answered. “That's what I was saying. Felt some bad mojo at the last second.”

“Enrique woulda killed us if we got his van jacked,” Mikey explained.

“How old was this guy?” I asked.

Longhair shrugged. “I don't know. At least your age. Couple years older maybe.”

“What else you remember about him?”

“Not much. He was carrying a toolbox—”

“It wasn't a toolbox,” Mikey interrupted. “It was a tackle box. You know. For fishing. And he had a rod with him. One of those telescoping ones. Woulda been nice to have, but we didn't stop.”

Something hit me then, and I knew exactly what my next destination would be if nothing panned out here. They couldn't tell us anything else, so I cut things short and spent the next hour with Cat hunting for more information, without result.

The last place we visited, the “cave” I'd heard about earlier, was actually a concrete bunker. A collection of desert-modified vehicles sat outside. Three-wheelers with big tires. A '70s-era Land Rover that had its roof cut off. A few motorbikes and what looked like an old mail truck missing the sliding door. Next to us, a souped up, tricked-out dune buggy rested in the sun like a coiled beast. A pair of legs stuck out from underneath, a set of wrenches and screwdrivers spread in the dirt.

“Hey, Kris,” Cat said over the noise of a gas-powered generator rattling a few feet away. A frayed, heavy duty extension cord ran from it into the bunker. “Whatcha doin'?”

“Shock needs adjusting,” he called out.

“Can we talk to you for a sec?”

Kris poked his head out and looked at me. “Who are you?”

“That's my friend Jim,” Cat answered. I didn't correct her.

“Soon as I'm done,” the man said, and continued working.

“Kris's been here a long time,” Cat told me.

“Why wouldn't I be?” Kris asked from his place on the ground. “Got everything I need here—
shit
,” he reached for another tool, “—and nothing I don't.” He tossed the wrench out and stood up, dusting himself off. “No government, no rules, no taxes, no fees. Just this wide-open desert and anything I can scrounge from it,” Kris explained, wiping his hands on a greasy rag. “See that line over there?” he said, pointing over my shoulder. “Up against the mountains?” I nodded, spotting a concrete wash cutting through the desert. “That's the Coachella Canal. On the other side? Well, that's the promised land. There's gold in them hills, falling from the skies,” he said, Cat laughing merrily. “And right behind me is my living room. I'll show you.”

We followed the cables inside. The size of the place surprised me. Some sort of underground storage area much larger than a bunker. The first thing I saw was a TV, which ten or so people were watching, some lying back on a stained sectional sofa, several others in chairs and on the floor. A refrigerator hummed in the corner. It must have been twenty degrees cooler than outside. Dim and comfortable. A window air conditioner sat on a table near the entrance, blowing cold air. I wondered if Turret had ever been down here.

“What do you think?” Kris asked.

“I'm looking for somebody,” I said. “Maybe you've seen him.”

Kris glanced at Cat, then addressed me with a grin. “Everybody's looking for something. We all found it by accident.”

But only when you let it all go
, Deirdre said in my memory. “His name's Glenn Turret. Late fifties. If he was here, it would have been sometime in the last couple of weeks.”

Kris shook his head. “Can't help you. Only strangers I run acrosst lately are you and all those retired folks.”

I nodded, disappointed once again. The TV was playing some old mystery on a beat-up VCR. I walked over to it and hit “stop.” “Anybody here know a Glenn Turret?” I asked over the protests and the snow on the screen.

“Who do you think you are?”

“Turn the damn TV back on.”

“I need to find him,” I continued. Kris got a beer from the refrigerator, shaking his head, while Cat went over and stood in front of the air conditioner, billowing her shirt to cool off. “White guy. Middle-aged, alone. I'll turn the movie right back on.”

Nothing but a few hostile, impatient looks. I hit “play,” apologizing as I did so. Outside, I heard Kris speak to Cat. “Your friend could be a little more—”

A fighter jet streaked overhead, cutting the silence of the desert with a thunderous scream. Seconds later, a rapid series of explosions echoed within the gunnery range as the plane strafed the area. Kris dropped his beer, scrambled to his dune buggy and fired it up. The others rushed outside in a mad dash to their own range-runners, and sped for the hills. They'd fight over the smoking rubble, looking for the diamonds in the rough before the next tracers came whistling in. Cat and I were left with nothing but smoke and dust in our faces as they all roared off.

It was close to noon by that time, and the sun was at its apex. Overheated and talked out, Cat and I returned to her trailer, where I thanked her for her help.

“You should let those whiskers grow out,” she suggested as we shook hands. “I always liked a man with a beard.”

For just a second, I saw the young woman she used to be. Almost gave her a hug before I left, but I didn't.

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

Minutes later I was on the main highway back in Niland. From there, I took one of the two-lane access roads cutting through the farmland that spread outward from the southern shores of the Salton Sea. I tried not to be discouraged about not finding Turret in Slab City. After all, the visit was based on nothing more than Terry's hunch. I was still playing hunches.