Speed Metal Blues: A Dan Reno Novel (2 page)

I eased out of my chair and mixed another highball, promising myself it would be my last of the night. When I came back to my PC, I logged on to a site requiring multiple passwords. As a licensed private investigator and bounty hunter, I subscribed to a service providing access to information typically only available to law enforcement agencies. I typed in Jason Loohan’s name, hoping there might be an update, something to suggest he’d come out west with Morrison. I came up empty, then ran a search for Joe Norton.

Soon I was staring at his weirdly disconnected eyes, choppy brown hair, and a set of teeth that grew from his gums at every angle.

Norton had spent most of his twenty-eight years in New Jersey. He was a high school dropout whose record began with a shoplifting arrest at age fourteen. His activities escalated from there—burglary at sixteen, a pot dealing bust at seventeen, drunk driving and assault at eighteen, and then he did three years in Trenton State Prison for a purse snatching that left an elderly woman seriously injured. After that he stayed clean for a few years, until he was arrested and charged with manslaughter for his role in a gang brawl that left a man dead. He was acquitted due to lack of evidence.

Before I retired for the night, I sprinkled a couple handfuls of two-inch nails on the street in front of my home. Then I tied a length of fishing line to the pine tree next to my driveway, stretched it ten feet into the street, and nailed it to the asphalt. After checking the locks on my doors and windows, I set the Beretta in my nightstand drawer and went to sleep.

• • •

I woke later than usual the next morning. After starting a pot of coffee, I fried three strips of bacon, then grabbed a granola bar and went out to my back deck for breakfast. The sun was already bright in the blue sky, warming the redwood table where I often sat to eat or read. I looked out over the meadow beyond the low fence separating my lot from miles of federally protected forestland. A family of beavers was building a dam in the creek that ran a hundred feet from my property. I kept an eye on their progress, hoping no flooding would result. The stream was high with snowmelt, and sections easily crossed by foot in the summer were now four feet deep and running hard and fast.

When I finished eating, I took my coffee cup and walked out to the street. The fishing line I’d strung was broken. I looked up and down the avenue. My neighbor’s homes were quiet and still. A large black dog came trotting down the street. I called him over and scratched his head for a minute. Then I backed my truck out from my garage and drove toward Highway 50.

It only took ten minutes to find what I was looking for. Behind a gas station, a few miles from where I lived, sat a car with two flat tires folded under its rims. I can’t say I was surprised at the car’s make and model—it was a 1970 Chevy Chevelle. I had run the car’s plates before, after Morrison outran me. It belonged to Joe Norton.

M
arcus Grier returned to the station from his lunch break to find two plainclothes cops waiting for him in the lobby. They were men Grier had met before, perhaps six months ago. He couldn’t remember their names, but vaguely recalled they were recently hired transplants from out of town, and worked for Douglas County PD, a few miles up the road in Nevada.

“Got a minute, Sheriff?” one asked.

“Not really, but come on back.” They followed Grier through the card-activated door, and down a hallway to his office.

“What can I do for you fellows?” Grier said, sitting at his desk and frowning at the stack of paperwork left from the morning.

“Not a lot, Marcus,” said the larger man, sitting without invitation. His eyes were bulbous under meaty lids, the skin heavily freckled. Grier stared at him, thinking he bore an uncanny resemblance to a large fish. The man picked up a framed photo on Grier’s desk, studied it for a moment, then smiled and put it back down. “You got a good-looking wife,” he said.

“Excuse me?”

“I’m just paying you a compliment.” The man stood, walked over to the window, and stared out at the sunny afternoon. He was tall, but despite his large frame he moved with a casual grace, as if he’d be equally comfortable on a football field or a dance floor.

“God, nothing like Tahoe in the spring,” he said to his partner, a slim man of uncertain race with a pockmarked complexion and eyes that didn’t blink.

Grier shook his head, an incredulous expression taking hold on his face. He placed his hands on his desk, his thick neck threatening to burst the buttons on his collar. “I’ve got a busy day, men. You mind getting to the point?”

“Now, slow down there, champ,” fish face said.

“I’m not sure what you yahoos think you’re doing here,” Grier said, his words coming from deep in his throat. “State your business. And you can start with your names.”

“Why, of course, Sheriff. I’m Pete Saxton, and my partner there, that’s Dave Boyce.”

“What do you want here in California?”

“You had a shooting in a bar last night,” Dave Boyce said. His skin was course, and the crow’s feet around his eyes flared when he squinted at Grier. “A man was shot in the ankle, and from what I hear, the perp admitted his guilt and is still on the street.”

Grier straightened the pile of papers on his desk. “You want to read my incident report?”

“Yeah,” Saxton said.

“Sorry, you can’t. I don’t know what you think you’re doing here, but I’ve got work to do. If that doesn’t sit well with you, tell Don Cunningham to call me.”

“Old man Cunningham? I don’t think so. He had a heart attack last weekend. Looks like he gonna retire.” Saxton smiled and made a popping sound with his lips.

“If that’s true, it’s news to me,” Grier said.

Boyce stepped forward, a pungent aroma wafting from his clothes. Apparently he believed an overdose of cologne was the solution for his body odor.

“What’s your deal with Dan Reno, Grier? You two queer for each other?”

“Get out of here, you jackasses,” Grier said.

“Come on, Dave,” Saxton said. “We’re wasting our time.”

After they left Grier checked his blood pressure with a portable device he strapped to his wrist. Then he opened the window and turned on his fan, trying to blow the stink out of his office.

• • •

Not far from the Nevada border and the casinos, a collection of apartment buildings occupied a cul-de-sac off Pioneer Trail. Originally built to house the low wage laborers who serviced the tourism industry in South Lake Tahoe, the structures had been there as long as anyone could remember. The apartments were typically inhabited by hotel maids, casino janitors, and welfare recipients. Over time, the tenants had become almost entirely Mexican.

The Pine Mountain apartment complex was configured in a square, its four rows of units surrounding a large common area. In better days there had been a swimming pool in the common, but it had long been cemented over. Still, the residents liked to gather there; it was a favorite place for children to build snowmen in the winter, and in the warmer months there would be barbeque parties, lively events with mariachi bands, colorful balloons, and piñatas.

But in the last year, the common area had become the turf of the Diablos Sierra gang. To many, it seemed the gang had sprung from the streets of South Lake Tahoe. Few knew that the dozen
cholos
had actually been sent from Juarez, El Paso’s notoriously violent sister city. Their mission was to establish control of the drug trade in the communities around Lake Tahoe, and then to expand their presence to Reno, a larger market controlled by a rival Mexican gang.

Sixteen-year-old Juan Perez looked out from the sliding glass door of his small apartment. A handful of gang members sat at the table in the square, drinking forties and throwing knives at a target they had spray painted on a huge pine tree. The leader of the gang, a man Juan knew only as Rodrigo, flashed his knife and threw a bull’s eye from twenty paces, the silver blade quivering in the bark.

Juan watched them, knowing he couldn’t be seen from behind the glass. The
cholos
were never without red bandanas covering their heads, stuffed in their belt loops, or sometimes tied around their upper arms. Within a few minutes, two white teenagers walked into the common. Cash was exchanged, and one of the teenagers shoved something in his pocket. Probably weed, or maybe crank. It didn’t matter to Juan. He never touched the stuff.

After lunch, Juan went out to the small patio outside his unit to repair a flat tire on his bicycle. His eyes carefully avoided the gangbangers milling around the table in the common. They were behaving as they usually did, flashing signs, their beer bottles prominently displayed. The sun shined warmly, promising a fine day, one that might have been perfect for a gathering. But no residents congregated in the square, save for the men with their bandanas.

Beyond the roofline of the apartment building, the Sierra Nevada rose five thousand feet, the whitebark pines and red fir standing against a spring sky so blue and clear it seemed magical. Juan had the day off and decided to test himself by seeing how high he could ride into the mountains. He’d patched the tube and was pumping up the tire when he saw a man enter the common.

The man was slender and of average height, and he wore loose-fitting jeans low on his hips, the way some of the boys did at Juan’s high school. His upper body was huddled in a cotton jacket, his face obscured by a hood. Juan watched him walk toward the gangsters. Though he dressed like a teenager, something about his gait made him seem older.

From his patio Juan could make out bits of the murmured conversation taking place at the picnic table. He didn’t pay much attention—he assumed it was a drug buy. But then the quiet morning erupted in loud curses and activity. The hooded man held a gun and a badge and shouted at one
cholo
that he was under arrest. The other gangbangers, except for one, ran off in different directions. A scuffle ensued, but soon the cop had his suspect cuffed and lying on the ground. Rodrigo, the
Mero Mero
of the Diablos Sierra, stood beside his prone comrade, his brow creased deeply over his black eyes.

“You know what would happen to you in my town?” he said to the cop. “You would be found headless in the gutter. Dogs would eat your guts.”

“Yeah? Well this ain’t your town, bean boy, it’s mine,” the man said. His head no longer covered by the hood, Juan could see his grayish, pockmarked face. “Step aside,” he said. “I need to read your
amigo
his rights.”

A moment later a tall white man strode into the common. Juan watched him approach the picnic table, thinking the casual bounce to his step seemed somehow incongruous with the situation.

“Everything under control here?” he said.

“Yeah. Let’s go.” Pock Face began leading the handcuffed suspect away.

The tall white man, his eyes protruding from under the mottled flesh on his forehead, pointed two fingers at Rodrigo. “What’s your problem? You look like someone stole your chimichanga.”

Rodrigo didn’t reply for a long moment. Then he sat on the table and leaned back on his elbows. “No, everything is fine, homes,” he said, his face transformed into that of a man at peace with himself and his world. “I’m just enjoying the beautiful weather.”

“Let me see your ID.”

“No problem, man.” He flipped open his wallet and handed a card to the big man with the fish eyes.

“Are you working, Rodrigo?”

“No, man, not yet. I’m still looking for a job, see?”

“You need to find one soon. Otherwise, immigration will put you on a bus and send you back to Mexico.”

“I don’t think so. My green card means I’m a lawful, permanent resident.”

Fish Eyes stared off toward the mountains. A hawk glided out of the sky, floating on the current until it was lost in the shadows.

“That’s an interesting interpretation.” The big cop smiled and joined his partner.

Juan watched the two policemen escort their prisoner out of the common. At first he was gratified to see the drug dealer arrested, then his stomach roiled with a sense of apprehension and foreboding so severe he had to sit down. He closed his eyes, remembering how his family lived in fear of the local
policia.
The Mexican officers wielded their power like a club, extorting and raping at will. The manner of the American cops brought the memories flooding back—the callous abuse of authority, the casual destroying of innocent lives, and the hunger for power and money that fueled it all. Juan had been told American police were honest, trustworthy servants of the people. When he looked at the two cops leaving the square, he knew he’d been lied to.

I
t was my habit to jog to the local gym and pump iron on Sunday afternoons, but the bumps and bruises I’d suffered the night before were ailing me to the point that exercise was improbable. Instead I headed over to Whiskey Dick’s for a dose of old fashioned pain medication. I’d just finished my second bourbon-seven when my cell rang.

“Hey, Dirt,” the voice said. My old buddy, Cody Gibbons.

“I’m heading your direction,” he said. “I’ve got to file some paper work at the state clerk’s office in Carson City. Some bullshit about a tax lien from that job I did in Vegas.”

“You mean the one when you slept with the mayor’s daughter and ran into his car when you dropped her off?”

“Yeah, yeah. They’re claiming my insurance was lapsed. It’s all a big misunderstanding.”

“How, if you don’t mind me asking, did you end up seducing the daughter of Las Vegas’s top public official?”

“Me seducing her? Christ, it was the other way around. And you make it sound like I defiled some young, innocent schoolgirl. This broad was a thirty-year-old nymphomaniac.”

“Where are you now?” I said.

“A few miles outside Sacramento. I should be in South Lake by seven or so. What are you doing for the next few days?”

“You between jobs?”

“Something like that.”

“Call me when you get into town.”

I shook my head and hit off my drink. Then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw two men take a seat at the far end of the bar. They both wore T-shirts and baggy shorts hanging to mid-shin, leaving only a narrow strip of exposed skin above their white socks. I swiveled away from them and focused my attention on the TV in the opposite corner of the room.