Speed Metal Blues: A Dan Reno Novel (12 page)

Carson City is an armpit of a town, exactly the kind of place you don’t want to wake with a hangover. If not for being the Nevada state capital, I suspect it would be no more than an anonymous blip on the map. But the city employed large numbers of government workers, and the storefronts serving them were lined up for miles on Highway 395, like a testament to cheap consumerism. Fast food restaurants, car dealerships, furniture outlets, gas stations, minimarts, RV centers, and cut-rate hotels for as far as the eye could see. Like a long, oversized strip mall. The effect was broken briefly by a couple blocks that passed for a downtown, consisting of ancient bars, a trio of run-down casinos, and the capitol building, a brown, domed structure that looked like it needed a good washing.

The single notable attraction of Carson City, and in truth the main reason most visitors ever came here, was a smattering of legal brothels outside the city limits. That was the extent of Carson City’s Old West charm—a few whorehouses relegated to the outskirts of town.

We stopped at every pool hall and bar on 395, and not a single bartender or patron claimed to have ever seen Jason Loohan. We left the last bar, a depressing dump that reeked of rotten teeth and vomit, and stood outside my truck in the cold shadows. My eyes burned with weariness, and the muscles between my shoulder blades were in a knot. I rolled my head and flexed my arms behind me.

“It’s past ten, Dirt. You ready to head back?”

“No. Not yet.”

Five minutes later I turned off 395 at the intersection where Highway 50 reconvened, heading east across hundreds of miles of barren Nevada desert.

“Here we are again, the loneliest road in America,” Cody said.

“Don’t sweat it, we’re just heading to the cathouses.”

“That’s what I figured, but with you I never know.”

I drove for eight miles into the emptiness until the low, faded billboard for Darla’s Ranch, The Velvet Parlor, and Tumbleweeds flashed in my headlights. The half-paved road we turned onto was dark and narrow. We rumbled over a short bridge and around a tight corner before pulling into a large, well-lit gravel parking lot.

Four chain link-fenced trailer homes arranged in a horseshoe surrounded us. One was a strip club that replaced a brothel that burnt to the ground some years back. The others were places where men went to tear off a piece of ass that would cost them nothing more than money.

We started at Darla’s, a no-frills ranch for the budget conscious. Inside was a small lobby crowded by a cigarette machine and a jukebox, and further in a weathered madam stood behind a four-stool bar.

“Company,” she rasped, and a half-dozen whores filed out from of an adjoining room where they’d been smoking and watching TV. They stood in a lineup for us.

Carla, a frizzy blonde with cottage cheese thighs and deflated breasts, smiled big, hoping to win us over with her personality. Her friend Zelda was a pretty brunette with an inviting cleavage, but her lower body looked borrowed from a circus fat lady. Beside her, a dour American Indian woman built like a skinny man stared us down as if plotting revenge for the massacre of her people. Next, a frail, bikinied thing mumbled her name, her blurred tattoos from a different era. Standing a head above her was a short-haired girl who reminded me of Alfalfa from the Lil’ Rascals. She may have been the cutest of the bunch, especially compared to the last in line, a female version of ex-Packers linebacker Ray Nitzke.

I produced one of my last remaining pictures of Jason Loohan, but before I could say anything, Cody stepped forward.

“Okay, ladies, who wants to pay me fifty bucks to get laid?”

Fortunately no one took great offense, especially after I bought a round for the house. But none of them recognized Loohan.

After that it was off to The Velvet, a more upscale brothel with at least a few ladies I wouldn’t kick out of bed for eating crackers. We had a couple drinks at their bar, and I let my head fall forward, the alcohol melting away the fatigue of the day’s work, my purpose slipping behind me. But the day wasn’t over yet, I reminded myself. I chugged a caffeinated drink and pulled Cody out of there, not an easy task after he’d become enamored with a stunning redhead who saw him as a hot prospect.

The remaining bordello was Tumbleweeds, a sprawling building with a fifty-foot mahogany bar overlooking a garish red parlor sectioned by circular couches.

“Whoever did this interior decorating should be shot,” Cody said.

At the corner of the bar stood a gangly man in a security guard uniform. He had a bit of a gut and a mustache that looked silly, but I’d seen him in action once, and he was quite competent with a billy club. I decided to steer clear of him. The jolt from the energy drink had already faded, and it was past midnight. I wanted to rid myself of my remaining pictures of Loohan and head home.

Cody seemed to have other ideas, though. We’d only been at the bar for a minute before he was on his second drink and had a slinky blonde perched on his lap. I handed her a sheet of paper and asked if she recognized Loohan. She whispered something in Cody’s ear, and they broke into giggles.

“Get a room,” I sighed.

“Don’t look now, but here comes Blackula,” she said, looking over Cody’s shoulder. I turned and watched a tall Negress with a beehive hairdo and cowabunga breasts approach us. Her lipstick was Christmas red and she wore black lingerie that brushed her ankles.

“You two look rough and ready,” she said. “Y’all ready to party?”

I handed her my last, crumpled picture of Loohan. “Ever see this guy?”

She looked at the picture and back at me. “You messin’ wit’ me?”

“No, why?”

“This chump offered me twenty dollars for a blow job.”

“When?”

“My rates start at three hundred, honey buns.”

“And I’m sure you’re worth every penny. When was he here?”

“Maybe half hour ago. I told him, he on a budget, head across the way to Darla’s.”

At that moment my cell rang. Cody looked at my phone, his eyes narrowed.

“That man whose picture you’re passing around,” a female voice said. “He’s out front, getting on a motorcycle.”

Cody lifted the girl from his lap and set her on the bar, and we raced out the front door. About fifty feet from us a man in blue jeans and a black leather jacket kick-started a blue Yamaha, a street legal dirt bike. His face was clearly visible under the lights attached to the chain link gate in front of Darla’s.

I handed Cody my keys. “Start my truck,” I said. Then I walked across the gravel to where Jason Loohan sat on the idling bike, his black hair hanging low over his forehead. He pulled his helmet on as I grew near.

“Man, that’s a sweet bike, dude,” I said. “I was thinking of getting one—”

I reached for his arm, but he juiced the throttle and the cycle leapt forward, the back tire digging into the gravel and spraying me with a shower of rocks and grit.

“Son of a bitch,” I said, spitting dust.

A second later Cody skidded to a stop next to me, and I jumped into the passenger seat. He mashed the gas pedal, and we roared after Loohan.

The dirt bike launched over a berm and caught big air, the rear tire pitched sideways in classic motocross form. Cody steered into the jump, and we careened over it, my head bouncing off the ceiling. I jammed on my seatbelt and watched Loohan wheelie down the straightaway leading from the cathouses.

“He’s playing with us,” I said. “We’ll never catch him.”

Cody ignored me and buried the throttle. We gained on the bike but had to slam the brakes to navigate a tight corner, which Loohan power slid around and exited as if shot from a sling. The motorcycle’s taillight began to grow dim. The road was now a straight shot to the highway, maybe half a mile, but much of it was uneven, paved smooth one second, then pot holed and rutted, then we’d slam up onto the concrete again, hitting so hard the entire chassis shuddered.

“You’re gonna blow a tire,” I said. Cody lost control of the truck for a second and took out a couple fence posts, the old wood snapping and flying behind us.

“Sorry about that,” he said.

Before I could reply, Loohan hit a dicey section at speed and almost went down. We made up some ground and were perhaps fifty yards behind him when he reached Highway 50. He turned right, heading away from town. We bounced up onto the pavement in pursuit, the motor revving against the red line, the tires howling until we caught traction and launched ahead.

“Not gonna catch him, my ass,” Cody said. The motorcycle was built for off-road and probably topped out around eighty. Within twenty seconds we were right on his rear fender, Loohan tucked over the handlebars, his right elbow cranked low, holding the throttle wide open.

“Your call. You want to take him now?” Cody said.

We were on a straight, two-lane ribbon of black asphalt. To each side of the road the terrain dipped low, the soft shoulders bordered by barbed-wire fencing. Beyond the fence line lay open desert plains.

“Pull up alongside of him. Put the bumper right on his leg and push him into the dirt.”

Cody swerved close to Loohan, near enough for me to reach out and touch him. Loohan stole a quick glance at us, and I saw his fingers reach for the brake lever.

“He’s gonna brake,” I said, and Cody edged closer, forcing Loohan to the last inch of pavement. In a second he would either brake and risk getting run over, or drop off into the dirt at eighty.
Now we’ll see how good a rider you are.

A long moment went by, then Loohan rose from his seat and steered off the road, his tires dropping into the void. He hit the loose dirt with his weight back, spraying us with a blast of dirt clods, then flew up the opposite side of the embankment and jumped the fence cleanly. Cody skidded to a stop and we got out and watched Loohan dart away through the scrub. His headlight flashed in the dark expanse for a minute, until it grew dim and disappeared. We stood on the side of the road underneath the stars as the last rumble of his motor faded.

“Got to hand it to him, he’s quite the acrobat,” Cody said.

“He’s got balls, I’ll give him that.” I got a flashlight and a map from my glove box and opened the map on the warm hood.

“There’s nothing for thirty miles in the direction he’s headed, and that’s pretty rough terrain, especially at night,” I said. “I think he’s got two choices—head back west, past the whorehouses to 50, or cut across further east, maybe surface in Silver Springs. Either way he’s got to get back on the highway tonight.”

“Or spend the night out there.”

“I doubt it. It’s too cold, and now that he knows he’s being hunted, I don’t think he’s gonna sit still.”

“Back west then?”

“I think that’s the best bet. We find somewhere to park off 50 and wait him out.”

“Let’s get coffee. There was a gas station back about five miles.”

We drove off, and while Cody was inside the filling station minimart, I unlocked the steel box in my truck bed and pulled out the suitcase containing my gear. My Beretta .40 cal. automatic lay on my bulletproof vest, along with a Panther stun baton, a spray can of mace, plastic ties that served as handcuffs, binoculars, and a 35mm camera. When Cody came back and handed me a steaming sixteen-ounce cup, the suitcase was between us on the seats, and I had just inserted an eleven-round clip into the Beretta.

“You still keep your backup piece under the seat?”

“Yeah,” I said. Cody reached between his legs and removed my Glock 9mm from its hiding place. He checked the chamber and put the weapon in the glove compartment.

I found the perfect spot without much searching, a brief rise in the highway where a small street intersected, maybe leading to a private residence, or a quarry, or some infrequent destination. I backed my truck down the street, giving us a wide view of the highway and the desert beyond.

“The goal here is to disable his bike,” I said. “If we see him, aim for his tires.”

“And if he runs?”

“I don’t lose foot races.”

Cody laughed. “Still got your speed, huh?”

“Enough of it, anyway.”

An hour went by. Clouds moved in, and the air felt damp. I kept my window down and listened for the low tones of Loohan’s four-stroke motor while scanning the desert for a solitary headlight. Cody flicked a cigarette butt out the window. “I gotta take a leak,” he said. He wandered a few steps from the truck, and I heard him urinating. Then I jumped as a shot broke the stillness of the night.

“I’m hit!” Cody barreled back into the front seat, his hand holding his shoulder, blood coming from between his fingers. Another shot, and the plastic cab window behind us split and my windshield spider webbed.

Crouched low, I started the motor and jammed the accelerator. A third shot sounded, winging off my window frame. I screeched onto 50 and floored it. Cody popped the glove box and wrapped his bloody paw around the Glock. A half mile down the road I slowed and turned to him.

“How bad is it?” I said.

“Just winged me. Stings like a bitch, though.”

I looked at the amount of blood soaking through his shirt. “You need stitches.”

“It’s a scratch. Turn around and let’s go find that fucker.”

“Wrong. I’m taking you to Carson City General.”

I slouched in my seat and peered out of the portion of the windshield still clear. I didn’t like the look of all that blood flowing from my partner’s shoulder.

“How the hell did he get behind us?” Cody said.

I paused. “He must have stopped in the desert and waited for us to drive away, then came back and followed us. Probably rode with his headlight off, or we would have spotted him.”

“I can’t believe we’re running from him,” Cody said, his face pale.

“You need a doctor.” I turned my eyes to the road and hit the gas.

• • •

I sat in the waiting area at the Carson City emergency room, dozing and waking every few minutes. The bullet Cody claimed scratched him had torn a trench along the meat of his left shoulder, and the doctor wanted to keep him overnight. I was dubious. As soon as Cody was stitched up, I expected him to come barging through the doors, ready to hit the road.