Lefty Lonowski was a
known snitch. Frank would have been well advised to have visited somebody else
after making his break, but Lefty’s home was the only one handy when the bus
blew over.
Lefty did not want
to be a snitch but life had been cruel to him. He had found out early that
information was as powerful as bullets: people would pay for it. Only problem
was, after everyone knew he was a snitch his sources dried up: he was cut out
of their thoughts and words. Finally, he had something of value.
☼
Lefty waited until
after dark. Not wanting to be seen nor heard, he slipped stealthily down the
alley to the old gas station two blocks away. The telephone booth at this
station was way out on the corner of the lot and the overhead light was burned
out. As a convict on parole and a friend of Frank, he could not risk a call
from home. Big Brother could be snooping.
He would sacrifice
his tight budget for this long distance call. He glided through shadows to the
dark booth, dropped his quarters in with their deafening “cling clanks,” and
dialed San Bernardino. He would have preferred to call Arturo because he did
not like to deal with blacks, but Mose was level headed and probably clear
headed. Mose would get the message straight the first time.
“Mose? It’s Lefty!
Lefty Lonowski!”
“Mose here, watcha
got?”
“Mose! Hey, listen
up and listen close. You still give old Lefty his finder’s fees?”
“Sure boss. Don’t
tell me you got lucky. What’s the scoop?”
“I want ten per cent
of your take. You’re not to mention my name to nobody! I’m still on parole. I
can’t afford the publicity!”
“Well, I know how
that is Boss, my life has to be very careful lived since that damn caper with
Frank! You’re in! Ten per cent of what I get! I hope it’s a good rat, ‘cause
parolee livin’ doesn’t leave much for steaks.
“Frank broke out
today. I lent him my bike, some clothes, some cash, some grass. He even took my
sleeping bag. He’s on the run. Just thought you’d like to know!”
“Sleeping bag, huh? Where’s
he headed, Boss?”
“Not sure! But he
let it slip that he was glad there was enough gas in the tank to get to
Bakersfield!”
“You done good Boss!
I’ll call Arturo right away! We won’t forget you! If your rat runs true, you’ll
get your villa in Acapulco yet buddy!”
☼
Mose had never been
involved in anything really bad--until he had met Frank. Mostly, he had been
raised in semi-squalor, and had ridden and worked the rails. He had been a railroad
conductor. He had saved his money and had had a modestly good life style. In
the early days, white businessmen had discarded their Wall Street Journal and
Fortune magazines into his hands. They had given him tips. He had been
beginning to form a respectable nest egg.
Out of the blue, the
CEO of his company had up and died. A new guy had come onboard. He had been
disgusted by the aging force of conductors, stewards, and red caps. Everyone
over forty had been let go. Mose had not had enough money to retire and nobody had
been hiring blacks without skills.
Mose’s friends had deserted
him. All he had had left were the street people. That was his downfall:
association. He might have fought his way back if he had not associated with
the wrong people. His reputation had been tarnished by the death of the diamond
broker, and now he was an ex-con. No future had been open to an ex-con. He had
tried to play his guitar for a while, but then he had gotten sick and had had
to sell his guitar for medicine. He had never gotten back on his feet.
Nevertheless, his spirit was unbroken.
☼
Mose went next door
to the neighbor lady’s house. It was old and smelled of mildew and black mold,
but he was welcome there because he did chores for her and looked after things
for her when she was gone. It gave him a better image in the neighborhood. She
was gone but she had left him a key. He dialed Arturo. Arturo answered but he
was shit-headed so Mose hung up. Mose gathered a bedroll, some canned beans,
some bacon, some chocolate bars, a camp stove, and his shiv. He stowed them
aboard Shady Lady, his shiny black Harley. Forty minutes after Lefty had called, Mose was off in the dark of night headed for Riverside.
It was too bad Arturo
was always loaded. It would have been more efficient for Arturo to come up and
meet Mose by Cajon Pass, or at least be up and getting ready while Mose drove
over. But hey! At least Lefty had ratted. That was a major break. It could have
been days before they heard it on the news. They seldom listened to the news
except for sports news on the Lakers. That would have been too late.
☼
Mose found Arturo
groaning on the floor in a stupor with a whiskey bottle spilled on the stained
carpet. Arturo was a chronic alcoholic. Even his parole officer suspected his
drinking. Nevertheless, since Arturo always drank alone and caused no trouble, there
was no reason to turn him in just to be vindictive. There were bigger fish to
fry.
“Hey, Boss! Big
news! Franks out, and it looks like he’s headed for the stash. You got no
business getting loaded on parole. Just cause you got some money to spend from
your body and fender job. You gotta get your head together! We got big shit
goin’ down now!”
Mose rustled up some
coffee and left it on the floor within Arturo’s reach. He retrieved Arturo’s
keys out of his pocket and began making ready.
Mose loaded both of Arturo’s
dirt bikes, along with Shady Lady, into the bike trailer and drove the van,
with the trailer attached, down to the all night station. He filled all the
tanks on Arturo’s credit card, which was always in the glove compartment. Then
he drove back and began loading the van with any food and supplies that looked
camp-worthy.
Arturo’s van and
trailer were black. He had planned to have the cult logo painted on both, but
had always been too drunk. Mose was pleased. For once, Arturo’s drinking was
giving them anonymity.
Mose went through Arturo’s
cabinets. “Hey boss? I know you! You gotta have a piece?”
Arturo brought his
puke-encrusted lips off the stained carpet and peered up at Mose, grimacing
angrily as though he had been hit on the head with a pipe. “I may get a drunk
on, but I’m not crazy. They’d throw the key away if they found me with a piece!
But I got somthin’, Bro. I got a huntin’ bow in the van with arrows.”
“You crazy? What can
you do with a bow?”
“It’s much more
silent than a gun with a silencer.”
“All right, where do
you keep your matches? We might need to start a fire. And if you have a camp
stove . . .”
Arturo growled, “All
that stuff is on the top shelf of the pantry. And don’t forget my whiskey and a
couple of jugs of water!”
“Ooohh Shit!” Arturo
scraped himself off the floor and onto the frayed couch, tipping over the
almost empty coffee cup.
“You can get your
own whiskey, but I’ll get the water. You better be taking it easy on that stuff
though, ‘cause we’ll need to be there for each other. I’ll need your backup.”
Mose tuned on a
rerun of “The Sound of Music” for Arturo to watch and took away his remote
control so he would sober up faster. Arturo hated musicals and would do
anything he could to get shipshape so that he could get up and turn off the TV.
☼
Patches of clouds,
still hanging heavily in the sky, began to shimmer on their edges with that
pale alizarin crimson of a coming dawn, as a black van pulling a black bike
trailer topped Cajon Pass and dipped into the dark bowels of the southern
Mojave Desert. Dagger-like slivers of sunlight slanted through the clouds on
the eastern horizon and set the tips of the Joshua trees aflame.
“Hey Bro!” Arturo
looked puzzled. “How we gonna find him anyway?”
“Dunno, Boss.” Mose
rubbed what was left of fuzz on his head. “May pass we don’t. Got any hunches?”
“Listen Bro, last
time we saw him was in Pahrump. He told us to party hardy, to celebrate our newfound
wealth. He said he was going to visit a friend in town who would buy the
diamonds.”
“Yeah! Everyone
knows Pahrump is an almost outlaw, barely legal, town. More brothels than
churches! More meth labs than drug stores! More pit bulls than French poodles!”
Mose paused. “Didn’t he say that all the whores were toothless, Boss?”
“No Bro, he said the
johns were all toothless! The whores are actually pretty cute. Don’t you
remember those whores that washed that guy’s motor home in the movie, ‘Mars
Attacks’”?
“Yeah boss! I
remember! But you’re confused. It was the scrawny red-headed guy on ‘Sunday
Morning,’ but they were cute.”
“I don’t watch
stupid shows like that!”
“Boss, ya do when ya
so wasted you can’t find the remote.”
“Whatever! The point
is they picked him up in Panamint Springs. That’s the other direction. What’s
in between?”
“Boss, that’s Death
Valley!”
“Listen Bro! They
have to be either in Death Valley or very close by.” Arturo looked over at
Mose’s worried expression. “Why you lookin’ at me that way?”
“Boss, Death Valley
is a mighty big place, it gets really hot, and there’s not much water. I don’t
want coyotes gnawing on my black bones.”
“Bro, you spent too
much time in school learning to reason. If you had field smarts you would know:
first your black body has white bones; second the coyotes will eat your body--they’ll
leave the bones to the buzzards.”
“Okay, so we’ll go
up through Randsburg and Panamint Springs“?
“That would be too
obvious! It’s too easy to spot us with all those wide, open spaces and
viewpoints. I got it figured Bro! We’ll sneak in the backdoor. It’s easy to
sneak into Shoshone. We can make that our base. We’ll leave the van out behind
the Crowbar lounge and then split up. You can take the Harley up Salisbury Pass
and then up the main drag. I’ll double back with one of the dirt bikes and take
the Saratoga Springs Road and then West Side Drive. We’ll meet at Golden
Canyon. If one of us hasn’t shown by 1:00 p.m., the other will backtrack over
his buddy’s track with an eye out for trouble. Any way you slice it, we are
going to go slow and easy and keep our eyes peeled--for anything.”
☼
Clouds had mostly
cleared up and the sun was bright. Heat permeated the van so that Arturo
screeched in pain when he touched the windowsill. They stopped in Yermo, at a
redneck bar run by a spiky haired blond gal. They drank until they could no
longer feel the heat searing through the tavern walls and then hit the road to
Baker. By the time they reached to Baker, the drinks had had an effect on Arturo.
Mose pulled in at a cheap motel for the night. It was only a single bedroom and
Arturo kept quaking and shouting out in his alcoholic dreams, keeping Mose
awake most of the night.
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