The Slab (13 page)

He took the bag from her, his fingers grazing hers as he did so. He held her gaze a moment, considering whether this would be a good time to ask her to dinner or maybe a movie up in Palm Desert. But the moment stretched too long, and he broke the connection. Probably talking about a potential kidnapping is not the best prelude to asking for a date, he thought. He’d try again soon, leading into it with some kind of more upbeat conversation.

“Thanks, Mindy.” He shook the bag, as if to demonstrate what he was thanking her for. “I’ll see you later.”

“Stay out of trouble, Ken,” she said behind him.

“I’ll try. You do that too.”

He pushed the glass door open with his free hand and stepped out into the blasting heat, feeling Mindy’s gaze on his back all the way out the door. As he did he examined his own hands, creased and callused, black grime worked so far into the lines and under the nails from working on his own car and house that soap and water could never completely clean them. He wondered if Mindy would even want those rough hands on her; he imagined they would shred her supple skin, like silk caught on a nail.

He was always surprised by how fast news raced around the valley, even though he’d lived here for long enough to have experienced it many times by now. At least she’d wanted to talk about Lucy Alvarez—even that was a relief after the days and days of everyone wanting to yack about the terrorist attacks. Mindy had the now-obligatory red, white, and blue ribbon pinned to her pink blouse, and an American flag flew outside the Shop-R Mart that had never been there before, but it looked like she might be capable of shifting her attention to other things, and Ken considered that a good sign.

As he walked to the squad car—since he’d loaned his Bronco to Billy Cobb, he was reduced to driving Billy’s cruiser—he saw a an orange Ford Pinto, its paint so sun-blasted it was hard to tell where the rust stopped, backing out of a parking space as another car passed right behind it. He flinched, waiting for the crunch of metal on metal, but instead there was only the long wail of a horn as the passing car rushed by.

Across the Pinto’s rear window, blocking most of the glass, was one of those American flags that newspapers had printed up. Ken walked up to the driver’s side of the car. The driver was a man he’d seen around but didn’t know, not a resident of Salton Estates but maybe Niland or Calipatria or someplace, a skinny guy with a brand new FDNY ball cap pulled down over stringy hair, wearing a flag T-shirt and sucking on a cigarette. Ken figured someone somewhere was raking in a hefty profit on phony FDNY hats. That and charity scams and car companies advertising deals—like interest free loans for those who needed them least—implying that it was un-American not to buy a new car pissed Ken off no end.

“I got nothing against the American flag,” Ken began. “But your rear window is no place to put one. You nearly backed into that car. You do that in your Pinto, the whole thing is likely to explode.”

“You ain’t a patriot, Sheriff?” the guy asked him. His tone was angry.

“I think I’m as patriotic as the next guy, son. But my job is public safety, and you’re not a safe driver with your rear view blocked by a sheet of newspaper. Please move the flag.”

“Or what? You going to arrest me for showing pride in my country?” He flipped his cigarette out onto the road. Skin cancer was the number one medical problem in the Valley, Ken knew—no one but the most diligent could avoid the sun beating down day in and day out, most of the year. But lung cancer was up there, as was cirrhosis of the liver: the illnesses of those with little money and less hope. Following those self-inflicted plagues were a variety of others, most of which were possibly tied to the massive amounts of fertilizers and pesticides needed to grow crops in the middle of a desert, seeping into the groundwater.

“I can’t arrest you for talking back or for being an asshole,” Ken said. “But I can arrest you for reckless driving, and take your car.”

“I’d like to see how long you kept your job after the newspapers heard about that.”

“I’d like to see how long you have to walk if you lose your driver’s license for threatening a law enforcement officer’s livelihood,” Ken replied. “Please get out of the car.”

“You ain’t serious,” the guy said, hands gripping the wheel as if afraid Ken might drag him out bodily. “Arab terrorists are attacking New York City and you’re hassling me over a flag?”

“No, sir, I’m hassling you over your demonstrated inability to drive safely with a large portion of your rear window covered. Get out of the car.”

Ken backed away from the door as the man got out. He was tall, and even thinner than Ken had believed at first. His black Levi’s were baggy and torn and flapped loosely around his thin legs. He couldn’t stand still, but bobbed and twitched and wriggled as he waited in the sunlight. Drug addict, Ken thought. He couldn’t tell what the guy was using—crack or crystal meth seemed more likely than heroin, unless he was jonesing for a dose, because of his irritability and tension. Heroin would have calmed him down, not hyped him up.

“Let me see your driver’s license,” Ken said.

The guy gave Ken a fuck-off-and-die look but fished his wallet from his jeans and passed it over. Ken studied the license for a moment. Barton Vander Tuin, with an address in Brawley. Brawley and El Centro, Ken knew, had far more than their legitimate share of drug addicts. With a largely seasonal work force, long hot summers, nothing much to do, and an impoverished tax base that couldn’t provide much in the way of social services, too many people turned to drugs to get through the days and nights.

Ken scribbled the name into a wire-bound notebook he carried and handed the wallet back. As Barton was replacing it in his pocket, Ken leaned into his car, reaching into the back and peeling the flag from the rear window. He folded it neatly along its original fold and handed it to the man.

“Here’s your flag,” he said. “Put it someplace safe. I don’t want to see you driving in this town with your vision obstructed again, and I don’t want to see you driving under the influence either. Get home safely and clean up, or we’re going to have a problem.”

“Hey,” Barton started to protest.

Ken cut him off. “Save it.”

He turned away and went to his car. Behind him he could hear the patriotic junkie getting back into the Pinto and gunning the engine.

What a world we live in, Ken thought as he watched the orange car drive off. What a world.

Ken knew he should have arrested the guy once he’d realized he was under the influence, but he hadn’t trusted his own self-control by that point. Having his patriotism questioned pissed Ken off no end. He had served his country when it was his time to, and done it without complaint. Since then, he’d worked in law enforcement, which he considered service of another, equally valuable kind. It was damn sure no one did it for the money.

Most of his time in the Nam was a blur of sweat and mosquitoes and fear now, the details, after so many years, mercifully indistinct. Except for one day—the first day he’d experienced the magic—which still remained as fresh in his mind as Mindy Sesno’s peach-flavored scent.

It was January of 1967, and the 1st Infantry Brigade, 173rd Airborne, was involved in Operation Cedar Falls. The stated purpose of the operation was to clear out the area called the Iron Triangle. About twenty miles outside of Saigon, the VC used the area as a staging area for repeated attacks on the city, and the brass wanted it to stop. The challenge was, it turned out, the VC were operating out of an incredibly complex system of tunnels under the Triangle, so most of the time the G.I.s sent after them couldn’t even find the enemy.

Which meant that volunteers were needed for a special mission. Since the year before, the name of this type of volunteer had changed, from Tunnel Runner to Ferret, before finally settling on Tunnel Rat. Unlike most Tunnel Rats, Ken was six feet tall, but he was just eighteen, wiry and limber, so he could scoot around the tunnels the VC had dug years ago, when fighting the French, and expanded upon more recently.

This particular day, Ken had awakened around dawn, as usual. The day was sticky already, not dry and hot like the desert he’d become accustomed to in later years. This kind of heat sapped your strength, and while he hated to fall asleep because you never knew what waited out there in the dark, the fact was that he found himself sleeping a lot, any time there were a few minutes of down time, simply because of the climate. Upon awakening, he’d felt the strange metallic taste in his mouth, but he didn’t know what it was. He purified some water to brush his teeth with, then swished some around in his mouth and spat it out, but the taste didn’t go away.

Then there was no more time to worry about it, because he had a job to do. With a small patrol, he hiked through the jungle to a spot where they had previously identified a hatchway into one of the tunnels, covered with mud and hidden in a trench. Ken stripped off his shirt, because that just got in the way down there. He was supposed to wear a cap with a headlamp and a microphone attached to it, with a communication wire spool on his belt. The wire would run all the way back to the surface. But Ken hated the whole contraption, which rarely seemed to work like it was supposed to, and which he was always afraid he’d get tangled up in. Besides, talking down in the tunnels, even quietly, seemed like the nearest thing to suicide he could imagine. So he scrapped that. He’d be down there with just a knife, a Smith & Wesson .38 revolver, smaller and more reliable than the Colt .45 he usually wore as a sidearm on the surface, and a flashlight. Once he had the lay of the land he’d go back down with a satchel charge or a bunker bomb to blow up the occupants, if any.

Fully outfitted, Ken lowered himself down the hole. He hated this part most of all—going down feet-first, completely blind. Anything could be waiting down there. Mines, feces-smeared punji stakes, scorpions, enemy soldiers—the variety of ways someone could die in the tunnels was just about endless.

On this occasion, though, none of those things waited right at the entrance. Finding himself completely inside the tunnel, Ken began to inch his way forward. He didn’t turn his light on yet because he didn’t want to make himself a target prematurely. So he moved in the dark, on his belly, probing with his fingers at the hard earth below, around, and above him. A wire hidden among the roots of a tree could, he knew, trigger a mine. Bamboo covered with leaves and mud on the floor could be a pitfall onto sharp punji stakes.

The doorways were the worst part, though. Sometimes they used sealed hatchways, almost submarine-style, so that if part of the tunnel was flooded or fragged the rest of it wouldn’t be affected. Going through those doors was always terrifying. Charlie could be on the other side with a garrote, waiting for a U.S. head to poke through. Or soldiers might be waiting with rifles. Or any of the other traps could be duplicated. These guys took no chances with their tunnels.

Ken had been inside for more than an hour. He hadn’t seen a living soul, though, after passing through two interior hatchways, he’d found what seemed to be living quarters for several people, with folded clothes, tiny cook stoves—smoke was carefully piped away from the tunnels themselves, and other pipes, barely wider than a stick of bamboo, provided circulation, and a few boxes of ammo indicated that there had been people here recently. Which could mean that they knew he was in here, and were moving toward another exit—or setting a trap.

Still, he kept going.

Another hatchway.

Heart pounding in his throat, he cracked it, listened. No sounds. He pushed through, reached ahead with one hand and touched the floor, then the ceiling. The floor was kind of far down, as if the tunnel on the other side of the hatch was a couple of feet lower than this one. Maybe it’s an older section, from the French days, he thought.

He went through the hatch, reaching down for the floor with both hands. Because of the angle, because he was going down farther, he hit the floor with more of his weight, and he was off balance as his legs came through the hatch, and the floor gave way beneath his fingers.

He tumbled down, thinking, shit, I’m dead.

Bamboo strips tore at his skin as he plunged through the false floor. But when he hit bottom, he felt solid ground. No stakes. No mines. He didn’t understand.

And then he felt the skin of the cobra as it writhed against his bare skin.

He lurched away from it, flicking on his light at the same time. There were three snakes, two banded kraits and a cobra. The kraits were small snakes, only about two feet long, but their venom was deadly. So was the cobra’s, for that matter, and this one looked to be about six feet long, though it was coiled up so Ken couldn’t tell for sure.

He needed to get out of the pit, which was only about four feet deep. But he was afraid that any sudden motion would attract more attention from the snakes. Slowly, he tried to bring his .38 into firing position.

The first krait didn’t wait for him. It darted toward him, mouth opening, fangs gleaming in the glow from his flashlight. Before the thing could reach him, though, the cobra struck—not at Ken, but at the krait. It caught the smaller snake in its mouth, fangs sinking in right behind the thing’s head, and whipped its own head back once, flinging the dead krait to the side.

The second krait almost seemed to understand what the cobra had done. It began to slither away, heading for the shelter provided by broken bamboo that had fallen in with Ken. The cobra didn’t give it a chance to get there, though. It lunged, killing the second krait as easily as it had the first.

Ken watched all this in rapt fascination, but when the cobra turned its gaze on him, he realized he should have used the opportunity to get away. The snake eyed him almost as if it had intelligence. Ribs on the sides of its head flared out, forming the hood for which cobras are famous. He knew these snakes could spit venom, though he couldn’t remember in his panic if that was as poisonous as being bitten.

Still keeping its gaze locked on Ken’s, the cobra stretched its length up, and up, like a snake charmer’s accomplice impersonating a rope. When it was high enough, it set its head down on the shelf that was the tunnel’s real floor, and the rest of it followed. Ken held his fire—shooting the gun would announce his presence up and down the tunnel, and if he could, in fact, survive this trap he’d have a good chance of getting the drop on anyone in its depths.