Speed Metal Blues: A Dan Reno Novel (23 page)

It was dead quiet inside. I felt my way down the hallway to the two bedrooms. My Beretta in my hand, I pushed open Norton’s bedroom door and flicked on the light. I let out my breath. The room was empty.

So was the other bedroom, but a rumpled green blanket and a grayish pillow lay on the bed. I was sure they hadn’t been there when I was here before. I ran my finger over the pillow and came away with two long, black hairs. I paused for a second, then checked the closet—nothing, not even a hanger.

I moved to the family room and hit the light switch. A couch, coffee table, and a TV, all dated and probably bought used. Some jackoff mags on the coffee table.
Hustler
and a few others I’d never heard of.

Cody knocked on the window, and I opened the slider. In one hand was his flashlight, in the other an empty quart container of Castrol 4-stroke motorcycle oil.

“This was in the garbage can,” he said. “Let’s go check the garage.”

We went through the dingy kitchen to a door leading to a vacant two-car garage. Spider webs hung thickly from the two-by-fours, and dust floated under the fluorescent light overhead.

“Look,” Cody said, pointing downward, to where the distinct tread pattern of an off-road motorcycle tire tracked the concrete floor.

“Question is,” I said, “assuming Loohan was here, when was it?”

“Better question is, when will he be back?”

Before leaving we turned out the lights, and I pressed the splintered doorframe back in place, hoping Norton wouldn’t notice it had been re-broken. Unless he was brain-dead, he’d probably see it had been. But at this point, I didn’t really give a shit. I planned on kicking the door in again first thing in the morning, and then we’d see how Norton liked my personal version of heavy metal.

• • •

We drove away into the moonless night and were almost to 50 when a sedan pulled up close behind us. A moment later a single red light atop its roof flashed, followed by the long piercing note of a siren. As Cody pulled over onto the dirt shoulder, I turned and looked behind us, but the spotlight attached to the driver’s door was blinding.

“Routine traffic stop?” Cody said.

“Doubt it.”

They approached from either side, the two men shining flashlights.

“Driver’s license and registration,” the voice on the left said.

A dark night. An unmarked car. An anonymous voice. I looked at Cody. He hadn’t yet switched off the ignition key. I could tell by his grimace he was thinking along the lines I was: maybe best to punch the gas and barrel into California. The state line was less than half a mile away.

But then the man on Cody’s side leaned down and showed his face. It was the plainclothesman from Douglas County, the tall man whose patch-like complexion and thick eyelids made me think of a grouper. The same cop who came into California and busted the Mexican drug dealers, the same one who evidently played by rules that stretched both legality and convention.

I found the registration in the glove box and handed it to Cody. “What’s happening, Detective?” I said.

The man took the document from Cody’s hand and studied it, and after a minute he leaned his face back into the window.

“You Dan Reno?”

“That’s right.”

“A complaint’s been filed against you both for breaking and entering and destruction of property. Step out of the car so I can read you your rights.”

“We’re licensed fugitive recovery agents,” I said. “Anything we’ve done is within our legal rights.”

“Really? Interesting stuff. Step out of the car, please.”

Cody and I climbed out. The man on my side of the truck was of average height and had well-shaped facial features compromised by bumpy and pitted skin. As he began reading us our Miranda rights, an odor like spoiled cologne wafted from his body. When he finished he said, “Assume the position. Hands on the hood, legs spread.”

While the man patted me down, I fixed my eyes on the big cop.

“Joe Norton has a rap sheet that includes a charge of murder. I suspected he was harboring a bail skip from New Jersey. The bail skip is a guy who makes Norton look like a boy scout.”

The policeman clicked a cuff around one of my wrists and pulled my arms together behind me. “Tell it to the judge,” he said.

“Hey, guys,” Cody said, as he was cuffed, “I spent five years on the force in San Jose. I worked for one of the most corrupt squads in the western US. When it all came crashing down, two of my ex-partners were sent to San Quentin. They’re still there.”

“And I give a shit, why?” said the smaller cop.

“Just something to think about, know what I mean?”

“Nope,” the cop said, and cinched the cuffs tight enough to cut off my circulation. Then they escorted us to the back of their car, and fifteen minutes later we were booked into the Douglas County jail.

• • •

I imagine after a certain length of incarceration, you reach a point where getting a decent night’s sleep is not impossible. The olfactory system tends to desensitize quickly, so maybe the thick odor of stale sweat, unwashed clothes, and low-grade institutional food becomes tolerable. As for the constant assault on the ears, the answer is less clear. During the quietest moments in a holding cell, the noise level is a cacophony of snores, groans, sighs, and gaseous eruptions. Dozing through it might be feasible for a deep sleeper. But on a regular basis, perhaps every hour or so, the night is disrupted by the heavy clang of cell doors, or loud, angry voices, or the wretched coughing and convulsions of a drunk heaving his guts out.

At dawn I sat up on my cot and surveyed the dozen or so men sharing the pen with Cody and me. A gray-bearded schizophrenic lay sleeping across the room, his hands black with grime, his body encased in layers of clothes. On the cot above him a skinny black man snuffled continuously, dealing with some private grief. In the next bunk, a young white kid was curled beneath his blanket, while the mattress over him sagged low with the weight of a snoring Mexican. Two cots over, a pair of bikers sat whispering, their eyes lit as if hatching some grand scheme, probably wired out of their gourds on crank.

An hour later not much had changed, except the grayness in the room had lessened as daylight ebbed through a pair of small, barred windows. One of the bikers, a stout, greasy man, shorter than me but just as heavy, walked to where the white youth lay, and stripped his blanket from him, revealing the kid huddled in a blue ski coat.

“I like your jacket,” the biker said. “Take it off.”

His eyes round with fear, the kid sat up and began pushing his arms out of the sleeves.

“Hey, buddy,” I said from where I sat. “What’s the matter, don’t you like my coat?”

The biker shot his eyes at me, his face at first surprised, then he put on his best deadeye stare.

“Mind your own fuckin’ business,” he said.

I stood and walked toward him. “I’m serious, man.” I said. “I think my coat would fit you better. His is too small. Are you telling me you think different?”

He shook his head, one side of his mouth opening in an incredulous sneer that exposed blackened gums and a missing tooth. I could see his hostility recede as he sized me up.

“What’s your problem, bro?” he said.

“I ain’t your brother, asshole.”

“Hey, man—”

I felt an icy blast of adrenaline course through my veins, as if the frustrations of the last twenty-four hours were encased in a crystal sphere held together only by the glue of my patience, and now that the first cracks in the shell had manifested, its shattering was imminent and outside my control. I smiled, my mouth cold and suddenly flooded with a taste like raw copper. The biker backed up a step.

“Tell me if I’m right, here,” I said. “You’re a chickenshit cocksucker who preys on those who can’t defend themselves. You hang around with other so-called badasses because left alone you wet your pants when someone gets in your face.”

The other biker, a bald-headed dude with a Fu Manchu mustache, scrambled down from the upper bunk.

“Back off now, man,” he said. “We’re cool here.”

“Bullshit we are,” said the stocky biker, his voice coming from the gut. He rushed forward and feigned a left hook, then tried to tackle me. I grabbed him by the back of the neck with both hands and brought my knee into his face, the crunch of bone on bone loud in the dank room, the impact like a sledge hammer busting through a piece of rotted wood. The man fell back unconscious, but before he hit the ground, his partner threw a fast right aimed at my ear. I ducked the punch, felt his fist graze my hair, and came up swinging, landing a hard shot to his ribs. His mouth went round as he tried to suck air, one eye clamped shut against the pain. Bent at the waist and backing up, he jabbed ineffectually until his heel caught the metal leg of a bed frame, and he fell onto his back. He tried to scramble to his feet, but I kicked him in the midsection, the toe of my boot ramming deep into his stomach. He collapsed gasping onto the dirty concrete floor. Curled in the fetal position, he raised his hand in surrender.

“Bravo,” Cody said, clapping twice, his legs hanging down from the top bunk. After a long moment, I said, “Fuck it,” and returned to my cot.

A few minutes later the jailer came by, a crusty, bow-legged man of indeterminate years who briefly cast his opaque blue eyes on the unconscious and bleeding biker, and seemingly discounted the situation as if it were no more a nuisance than a tipped-over trash can.

“What happened to him?” the jailer croaked.

“He fell out of bed,” said the other biker, who’d slithered back up to his bunk.

The jailer left without reply and within a few minutes, two men with a stretcher came and took the injured man away.

Breakfast came and went, and around ten in the morning, my lawyer, Sam Ruby, an ex-San Jose defense attorney who now worked out of Tahoe City, arrived. By noon we were kicked free on our own recognizance, Norton’s complaint still pending.

“You think they’ll proceed with the case?” I asked Ruby.

“I doubt it. The DA here is a woman I’ve known for years. She seemed to think the charges probably don’t have much merit.”

“They don’t, especially considering the source.”

“Be careful. Joe Norton may be an ex-con, but he has rights like anyone else.”

I considered his remarks as he drove us the five minutes to where Cody’s truck was parked on the side of the road near the Horizon Casino. “The cops who arrested us,” I said. “Did you get their names?”

Ruby pulled a pad of paper from his briefcase. “Pete Saxton and Dave Boyce.”

“Thanks for everything, Sam.”

Cody and I climbed into Cody’s truck as Ruby drove away. He would send me a bill later for his services. It would probably be at least a thousand dollars. Shit, I thought. My flush financial situation wouldn’t last long at this rate. Other issues aside, going after Jason Loohan was turning out to be a bad business decision.

But I had another, more pressing concern, one that had been gnawing at me since Candi called yesterday. She was the only woman I’d had serious thoughts about in three years. Every time I reminded myself she’d be here in a few days, I felt a warm buzz of anticipation in my heart, followed by a lump of unease. Her timing couldn’t have been worse. To say it would be awkward if Cody and I were running around trying to find Loohan while she was here would be an understatement. Worse, having her stay at my house potentially gave Loohan a target for a hostage. I felt my teeth grinding and opened my jaw, trying to relax the muscles.

I had fried my first and only marriage, the result of my inability to deal with the fallout from my career. My ex-wife was a good woman, and I suppose she had wanted what I thought most women want—a reasonably sober man with a steady job and positive prospects for the future, a man who could be a good husband and father. Given what I was going through at the time, it was too much to ask. I remember telling myself that my downward spiral into the world of 2
A.M.
dive bars was normal, just a way to wash the taste of death out of my system. By the time I realized my rationale was bullshit, my wife was long gone.

“Goddammit, Cody,” I said. “We could be just spinning our wheels here. We have no evidence Loohan is still around.”

“We saw tire tracks in Norton’s garage,” Cody said. “My gut tells me he’s out there. I don’t think Norton was lying when he said Loohan would find us.”

I sighed. It had been three days since our run-in with Loohan, and besides Norton’s comments, we’d turned up no solid evidence he was still in the area. I was beginning to think that if he wanted to come after us, he would have already done so.

“I guess we could politely knock on the door and inquire if Mr. Norton could direct us to Loohan,” Cody said, steering off the shoulder onto the road.

“I suppose there’s no law against that.”

“His house is only five minutes away.”

We didn’t say much on the way there. I was tired from the lousy night’s sleep, hungry after missing dinner and skipping the lousy jailhouse breakfast, and feeling lousy about the fact that an ex-con lowlife like Norton had not only arranged to have us arrested, but was also the only lead we had in the search for a man who was either long gone or possibly nearby, waiting for the right moment to take us out of the equation permanently.

I rubbed the fatigue from my eyes as Cody turned onto the street where Norton lived. We could see his blue Chevelle in the driveway from a dozen houses away.

“Looks like he’s home this time,” I said, while we parked across the street.

“Just to be on the safe side, I think I’ll bring your shotgun,” Cody said.

“Better safe than sorry, my mother always told me.”

We walked up to the front door and when I knocked, the door swung open a few inches. The jamb had not been repaired from the night before.

“Hello? Tahoe Gas and Electric here,” Cody said loudly.

No one replied. I pushed the door open all the way.

“Gas and Electric,” Cody repeated, louder. No reply.

We looked at each other. “Maybe he’s asleep,” I said. “He seems to keep late hours.”

“Wait here,” Cody said. “I’ll go see if I can look in his bedroom window.” While Cody walked to the side yard, I stepped inside the house and took a quick look. Not a light was on; the place was still—too still. I retreated to the porch and stood motionless, straining my ears for the slightest sound. It was warm in the shade, the sky almost cloud free, the afternoon turning unseasonably hot.