Loser's Town (24 page)

The guy on the skateboard was in his early twenties. He didn’t do any fancy tricks but he was fast and he pushed the board along at a good click. He came sailing down the sidewalk on Richie Stella’s street when, for some reason, he decided to hop off the sidewalk into the gutter and then hop back onto the sidewalk. He almost made it, too, but the back wheels didn’t quite clear the curb and he went down just behind Richie Stella’s black Audi parked in Richie Stella’s driveway. The board went sailing on past the car but the skate-rat didn’t.

Richie himself happened to be standing near the front window and saw all this. He went quickly out the door not with the intention of helping the skate-rat but with the intention of breaking the kid’s legs if he’d damaged the car.

‘Hey, you little shit!’ Richie called from the front porch.

The skate-rat staggered up from behind the car, holding his elbow.

‘Stay the hell away from my car,’ Richie said to him. ‘You and your goddamn skateboards, you’re gonna dent it!’

‘Hey mister, I’m okay,’ said the skate-rat. ‘I’ve just lacerated my fucking elbow, thanks for your concern.’

Richie said, ‘Just stay the hell away from my car, you little faggot,’ and went back inside.

The skate-rat flipped him off, then limped over to his board and skated away. Terry was sitting in his own car down the street and around the corner. The skate-rat whizzed up to Terry’s car, did a skid-stop, flipped the board into the air and caught it, all inches from Terry’s window.

‘Charming,’ Terry said to him. ‘But at your age don’t you ever want a real car?’

‘Man,’ said the skate-rat, ‘I deserve to get compensated for this shit. Look what I did to my arm. This falling shit, I should get hazardous duty pay or something.’

‘Nobody told you to fall. How do we know you did it on purpose? How can we be sure you’re just not a shitty skateboarder? Think of it from our perspective.’

‘A little something extra in the paycheck, is all I’m saying. This is above and beyond the call.’

‘I’ll talk to Coren,’ Terry said. ‘Did you attach it?’

‘Of course I attached it. This is why you guys pay me the big bucks, right?’

‘You turn it on?’

‘Gee, duh . . .’ said the skate-rat, crossing his eyes. ‘Talk
to Coren. Get me some extra bread or tell him I ain’t doing this shit no more. It’s fucking dangerous.’

‘You’re bleeding on my door. Now go away like a good boy and bleed elsewhere.’

‘And tell Walter we’re in the twenty-first century now. This Victorian Radio Shack shit he’s using is an embarrassment. That thing was big enough to have tubes in it. Tell him to pony up some bucks so we can look like pros, for chrissake.’

The boy skated away. Terry sighed and thought about his own youth. Nobody had skateboards in Derry in those days. Nobody knew what a fucking skateboard was, and wouldn’t have cared if they did. Terry’s youth was about smoking and trying to get laid and drinking until you puked and trying to see if you could clout a Brit greenie with a brick without getting caught or shot. Life was so innocent in those days. Terry sighed again and looked down at a laptop computer sitting in the passenger seat. He typed in the Internet address Spandau had given him. A map appeared with a small dot blinking in the middle of it. Terry settled back in his seat to wait. It was Thursday. The car would be moving soon. Terry didn’t trust technology but he was all for anything that made his life easier.

The dot began to move a couple of hours later.

Terry watched the dot move almost imperceptibly toward him and glanced up to see the Audi, with Martin behind the wheel, glide past. Thankfully Martin was in his own little world and didn’t notice him. Or at least
Terry hoped like hell he didn’t, or things were liable to get complicated. Terry gave him a good lead and then followed.

The system was remarkably easy to use, except for Terry having to watch the screen and still drive the bloody car. A couple of times Terry overshot a turn – you couldn’t really tell the distance to a turn, just that a turn was coming – and had to backtrack. It was worse through town, since Martin apparently had his own unique shortcuts, but once Martin turned onto the interstate life got easier. Terry had his iPod jacked into the car’s sound system and listened to Bach’s
Goldberg Variations
as the flashing dot led him out of LA and east toward the desert. Martin stopped twice, and both times Terry thought Martin was making a pickup, but it was only at gas stations to pee. Poor Martin had something wrong with his plumbing, or maybe the whole business just made him nervous. Terry drove past and found a discreet place to pull over and wait until Martin caught up again. It was like playing leapfrog, and it amused Terry to think that you could probably do a decent job of tailing somebody even if you were ahead of them. There was a lot about this job that Terry found amusing. He had no great hopes for human nature and was rarely disappointed or shocked by what he saw people do. He took these occasional jobs for Spandau and Coren as much for the entertainment value as the money. Terry didn’t like being bored and would complicate his own life unnecessarily if he wasn’t
amused. Then again, the whole of fucking Ireland was like that, so he came by it honestly.

Martin took highway 10 out through Rancho Cucamonga and Redlands to just beyond Cabazon. Terry was a mile or so behind him when he noticed the dot veer to the right and off the highway into a blank area. Martin was either flying or he’d driven onto a road too small for the chart. Terry sped up and missed the road the first time. The dot was heading south and Terry was still going east. He turned around and found the road, hardly more than a dirt path. In the distance he could see the cloud of dust kicked up by the Audi. There was no cover to speak of and Terry’s own dust-cloud could be spotted as well. Whoever had picked the location knew what he was doing. Terry waited for the dot to stop moving. It did finally, about three miles in. The Audi had disappeared around some hills a mile ahead. Terry decided to take his chances and moved his car at a snail’s pace down the dirt road, kicking up as little dust as possible. He was reasonably safe anyway until he rounded those hills. Then it was anybody’s guess. Meanwhile he prayed Martin wasn’t in a hurry to follow the road back. Meeting Martin head on would be interesting to explain, and there was no place to hide.

Terry was lucky. The road turned around one set of hills and then, about a mile on, around another. Terry decided not to push his luck. He pulled off into the second hills and parked the car where it wouldn’t be seen. From the
trunk he took a knapsack he always kept packed – goodies for all occasions – and a pair of strong Zeiss binoculars. He climbed up into the rocks and from there could see, half a mile on, a small house trailer sitting in the open. An SUV and the Audi were parked in front. Terry looked around him to make sure he wasn’t putting his ass down on a scorpion or a rattlesnake, then made himself comfortable. The contents of the knapsack included a thermos of coffee, bottled water, toilet tissue, snacks, and a paperback of
The Silmarillion
. Terry popped the iPod buds into his ears and listened to Enya while he read, for maybe the ninth time, about the history of wizards and orcs. Every now and then he glanced at the trailer. It wasn’t going anywhere.

Martin was inside for just over an hour. He came out of the trailer carrying a brown paper grocery bag, and followed by a tall, skinny geeky-looking fellow in a knitted cap. They talked for a moment at the car, then Martin drove away and the geeky-looking guy went back inside. There didn’t seem to be anybody else around.

Terry had decided to let Martin go. Terry’d done his job, he’d followed Martin to the source, and he knew where Martin was going next – right back to LA and Richie. Terry wanted to see what was inside that trailer. He was pretty sure he knew already. Terry didn’t think the geeky guy lived inside the place. The trailer was small and rusty and dented and the windows were covered from the inside with cardboard. It was no palace. It was the sort of place
you got out of as soon as you could. At least Terry hoped so. He didn’t fancy sitting here all night. It would get cold and windy and he couldn’t use a book light to keep reading.

It was dusk when the Geek came out of the trailer, locked the door, and climbed into the SUV and drove away. Terry waited until the sun went down, then, shouldering the knapsack, picked his way toward the trailer. He checked the perimeter of the place. A propane tank attached at one end and a tiny gas-run generator but no electrical wires or plumbing running in. The place was completely off the grid and could be moved or abandoned in a heartbeat. When Terry was satisfied there was no alarm system, he took out a small crowbar and jimmied the door. He waved his flashlight around. The place was as much of a shithole inside as out. A rickety kitchen table and a couple of chairs. An old refrigerator, damp and empty except for some cans of beer, a loaf of bread and some dubious lunchmeat. A small, new and efficient-looking four-burner stove. Lots of pots of various sizes and pans with their inside bottoms well darkened, three cases of bottled purified water, and ten boxes of baking soda. Plastic Ziploc sandwich bags. He looked into cupboards and nooks and crannies, then ran his hands over the surface of the countertops. As clean as a hospital. They were careful about the cocaine. Cocaine was expensive. Terry got out his digital camera and took a lot of photographs. Not much legal proof of anything, though maybe you could scrape the pots if you cared to get scientific. There was no
point. Spandau didn’t need legal proof, he wasn’t a cop. Terry had found the source and that was all he needed. Terry felt very proud of himself. Spandau would be happy.

He would have been significantly less pleased with himself, however, had he noticed the tiny red dot in an upper corner of the trailer. This was a camera, and Terry was starring in his own reality TV show.

Sixteen

The disreputable Potts drove his disreputable pickup truck to Ingrid’s house. It was exactly the sort of place he’d imagined she would live. A nice, quiet street with postage-stamp green lawns, flowerbeds and wooden houses. A Leave it to Beaver neighborhood, about as familiar to Potts as the far side of Jupiter. He drove past her house three times, afraid to pull in, waiting for the Neighborhood Watch to call him in to the cops. No mob with axes and clubs blocked the street. He parked in front of the house. He had a box of candy and some flowers. He thought about bringing wine, he knew people did that, but he knew shit about wine and you could make a moderately smaller ass out of yourself by bringing the wrong candy and the wrong flowers. He’d resigned himself to the fact that whatever he did would be wrong, and that the evening was never going to be repeated. Still, you had to try. Potts knocked on the door.

Ingrid wore a blue flowered dress. Potts was surprised by the amount of skin showing. She opened the door and the first thing Potts took in was her bare arms and the V of a neckline that lost itself, as did Potts, in the shadow between her breasts. In truth it was nothing she couldn’t have worn to a church social, but Potts had always seen her looking so prim and so proper and so, well, covered. Potts had imagined her a kind of old maid. She wasn’t. Potts realized his eyes were ranging up and down her body and he felt himself going red. Ingrid didn’t seem to mind.

‘Mr Potts,’ she said, giving him that smile. ‘You’ve indeed showed up. Please do come in. And flowers and candy! How gallant!’

She ushered him inside. The house was dark and cool. Old heavy furniture. Some lace, some knick-knacks. Books. A goddamn baby grand piano. The smell of food cooking. A woman’s place. No hint of a man in sight. An old maid could live here. Potts looked at her shoulders, the back of her long neck, her hips. He couldn’t get one vision of her to merge with the other.

‘I was waiting for the sound of the motorcycle,’ she said to him.

‘I drove the truck.’

‘Don’t you look handsome!’ she said, looking him up and down. Potts had worn his one suit, the one he’d bought for the custody hearing over his daughter, the custody hearing that never happened. ‘Come into the living room.’

Potts sat down on a rose-covered sofa. Rounded copper tacks outlined the frame, held the upholstery on. It felt solid, old, full of history and class. Potts took comfort in nervously rubbing the tacks at the end of the armrest with the tops of his fingers.

‘The flowers and candy, thank you, they’re lovely.’

‘I was thinking maybe I should have bought wine. But I didn’t know, like, if you drank wine, and, anyway, I don’t know anything about wine, I’d a brought the wrong stuff anyway, probably.’

‘No, you did well. These flowers are beautiful.’

‘Ingrid,’ called a woman’s voice from the back of the house.

‘It’s Mother,’ said Ingrid. ‘She’s curious about anyone who visits. She may join us for dinner. I hope you don’t mind.’

‘Ingrid,’ the voice said again.

‘She has Alzheimer’s,’ said Ingrid. ‘She goes in and out. It can be distracting. Clear one minute and off the next. It’s sad. She was a college professor. She’s published books. She was an expert on Brahms.’