Speed Metal Blues: A Dan Reno Novel (7 page)

“Let’s go suggest a change of scenery to these
pendajos
,” Cody said, sliding open the glass door. We walked across the grassy area to where they stood.

“What’s going on, boys?” Cody said. The men stared at us with blank eyes. A couple of them were probably teenagers, the rest in their twenties. Tattoos covered their brown skin, their teeth flashed with silver caps, and the pants they wore sagged low on their hips.

“You want something?” said the largest of the bunch, his torso fat and barrel shaped. He stepped to within an arm’s length of Cody and gave him the dead eye.

“You want to sell drugs, go find somewhere else to do it,” I said, addressing a man with angular eyes and a square jaw. “The people living here have a right to this area.”

“You a funny man, homes,” he replied. “Maybe not too smart, though.”

“I think you’re the one with an intelligence issue,” Cody said. The fat man started to say something, but Cody shoved him and sent him sprawling over the table.

The
cholos
jumped at us, circling, getting in position to rush from all sides. I heard the flick of a knife, and saw a blade in the hand of one of the younger gangbangers. He came at me and I kicked his wrist, my foot extending over his head. The knife flew from his hand, then I grabbed him by the hair and pounded his face into the large pine tree shadowing the table. He flailed, but after the third blow he dropped to the ground, bleeding from the mouth and unconscious. Before I could turn, another one jumped on my back. I hit him hard in the ribs with an elbow, peeled his hand from my throat, and slapped him into a wrist lock. When he bent to keep his arm from breaking, I kicked him in the gut, and he collapsed and lay in the fetal position.

Two of the gang ran at Cody. One got behind him and swung a forty-ounce Budweiser bottle, shattering it over his skull. Cody turned and grabbed the man’s neck, then picked him up by the crotch and launched him into the other Latino. They went down in a heap.

The Mexicans regrouped, waving bottles and knives, circling. Cody and I were waiting for their attack when two men in street clothes walked into the square.

“Looks like cops,” Cody said, a thin trickle of blood running beside his ear.

Four of the gangbangers bolted, leaving the unconscious member lying near the tree. The two Cody and I had spoken to remained, apparently unconcerned about the arrival of whoever was coming our way. Probably because they weren’t holding drugs, I guessed.

“You recognize them?” Cody said, nodding at the white men walking toward us.

“I’ve seen the bigger guy before. Pretty sure he works for Douglas County.”

“What’s he doing in California, then?”

The two men approached and flashed badges.

“What happened to him?” said the smaller one, a pock-faced man with black hair. He pointed at the prone Latino, who lay near the picnic bench, blood trickling from his mouth.

“He was playing Frisbee and ran into the tree,” I said.

The man glared at me, but his big partner’s freckled face split into a grin.

“Don’t you hate it when that happens?” he said.

“If you two are here buying dope, you’re out of luck,” Pock Face said. “So get lost.” He began searching the two gangbangers, ignoring us as Cody and I backed away to the small patio of the Perez apartment. Theresa opened the sliding door while we watched the cops handcuff their suspects.

“It’s Rodrigo,” Theresa said. “Their leader.” She pointed to the slim man being led away. He was walking in starts and stops and leaning unexpectedly, making it difficult for the cop to guide him smoothly. It was an old prison trick.

“I guess our work is done here, huh?” I said to Cody.

“For now, I suppose,” he replied.

“Looks like the police are taking care of those guys, Teresa,” I said.

“I appreciate you coming.” She bowed her head and smiled shyly, standing with her small feet together. She wore black flats, her calves full and well shaped, her thighs curving invitingly into the ruffles of her short dress.

“Of course,” Cody said grandly. “We are at your service,
senorita
.”

“Oh, Mr. Gibbons, you are bleeding.”

“It’s nothing, just a scratch.”

“You have glass in your hair. Sit, and let me clean it for you.”

Cody sat at the kitchen table and Teresa began combing out the shards from the broken bottle. Soon a small pile of bloody slivers lay on the newspaper she’d laid on the table.

“You have some cuts,” she said. “I will clean them with alcohol.”

When she finished, Cody said, “Thank you, Teresa. If you have any trouble, ever, you can call me.”

“Okay, Mr. Gibbons,” she laughed. “I will remember that.”

We left after Cody said a prolonged good-bye, and drove out to Highway 50, heading toward the state line.

“I should call Marcus Grier,” I said.

“Grier? Does he still hate my guts?”

“Probably.”

“I could never figure out what his problem was.”

“He’s a lawman, Cody. Every time he’s met you, it’s been in the middle of a shit storm you created.”

“What? That’s the biggest bunch of bullshit I’ve ever heard.”

“I’m sure you’ve heard worse,” I said, pulling into Whiskey Dick’s. He gave me a curious look as I left him at the bar and went to a table in the corner to call the sheriff. After a minute I was connected to Grier.

“
Say that again?
” he said.

“A couple plainclothesmen just arrested two Mexican gangbangers at the Pine Mountain Apartments,” I said. “I recognized one of them—about six-four, with a face like a fish. I ran into him once in Douglas County.”

I could hear Grier breathing in the phone. “Describe the other one.”

“Five-nine, dark hair, acne scars.”

“Thanks for the information,” he said, and hung up.

At the bar, Cody was shaking a dice cup and eating a bag of potato chips. “What’d your buddy have to say?” he said.

“He didn’t sound too happy.”

“You mean he didn’t like the concept of out-of-state cops coming into his backyard and making arrests?”

“Apparently not.”

“No wonder he’s pissed.”

“Those cops didn’t read those guys their rights,” I said.

“Yeah, and did you like how they left that one who’s face you pounded lying there?”

“Something ain’t kosher with those guys.”

“No shit, Sherlock. Any idea what’s behind it?”

“Nope.” I sipped my beer and took a few chips from Cody’s bag. The blatant misconduct we witnessed was hard to ignore, but whatever trouble might be brewing between Marcus Grier’s office and the cops from Nevada was none of my business. Cody would surely understand that, I hoped.

T
he white police van rolled across the state line and came to a stop at the police complex in Nevada. Pete Saxton and Dave Boyce opened the rear doors and brought their suspects into the booking room.

“Put ’em in the drunk tank,” Saxton said to the jailer, a grizzled ex-prison guard nearing retirement. “I wouldn’t feed them anything unless you want to clean up their barf.”

“We aren’t drunk,
officer,
” Rodrigo sneered, his brown face reddened.

“You sure were having a hard time walking ten minutes ago. What was in those forty-ouncers you were drinking, fruit juice?”

Boyce finished writing on a sheet of paper and handed it to the jailer. “Don’t let them out until we show up in the morning, okay, Sam?”

“You got it, hoss.”

• • •

When Pete Saxton woke the next morning, he made sure to put his shoes on before leaving his bedroom. The workers remodeling his kitchen had turned his home into a shambles. Sawdust coated the hardwood floors, and the other day he had stepped on a nail, the tip jabbing into his heel and drawing blood. He would talk with the contractor the next chance he got, tell him to keep the place cleaned up or he’d take it out of his pay.

He took his coffee out to his new deck, the freshly stained redwood shiny and smooth. The hot tub he had installed a week ago gurgled quietly. He’d not yet had a woman in there, but planned to bring one home soon, preferably some young thing for a little soak and poke action.

Saxton finished his coffee and picked the dried mucus from the corner of his eyes. So far, his arrangement with the greaseballs from Pistol Pete’s was going better than expected. They wanted some low-rung pushers cleared out of town, a pretty easy task, especially given what they were willing to pay. It might get a little sticky since the Mexicans were operating out of California, but he was sure he could handle whatever issues came up. Who would complain too loudly about a group of crystal meth-dealing beaners getting shit-canned?

The best part, though, was the deal was ongoing. After the Diablos Sierra was done with, the mob would move their boys in, on the Nevada side of the state line. Saxton would receive an envelope weekly for making sure they were not harassed. He looked at his watch. In an hour he’d meet with Joe Norton and his crew. The heavy-metal gangbangers from Jersey were strictly white trash, but what do you expect from a group of drug dealers recruited by the mob? At least Norton seemed reasonably intelligent and sane.

But intelligence and sanity are relative terms, Saxton thought, a smirk on his face. When Norton had told him about a local bounty hunter named Reno shooting Billy Morrison, Norton’s right hand man, Saxton was incredulous. An accused rapist jumps bail, gets shot and captured, and takes the big bounce. What’s the issue here? Sounds like Billy Morrison’s life was circling the drain anyway. But now Norton had a hard-on for Reno, and Saxton said he’d do him a favor and look into it. So he’d talked to the black sheriff, who apparently had some history with Reno. What had that accomplished? Probably nothing.

Saxton drove his SUV to Dave Boyce’s house, a mobile home in a trailer park that was once a haven for prostitutes. Boyce’s ex-wife had cleaned him out when they divorced and was still taking half his paycheck. The good news was she wouldn’t be able to touch the crisp twenties stuffed in those weekly envelopes. Still, Saxton was a bit worried about his partner. Since his wife left him, Dave Boyce spent two hours each evening working out at a martial arts club, beating the shit out of heavy bags, speed bags, sparring partners, whatever and whoever was available. On weekends he hung out at the casino nightclubs, trying to seduce every woman he could find. To Saxton’s knowledge, Boyce hadn’t had a piece of ass in months. A week ago Boyce admitted as much, adding that the fact he couldn’t get laid despite being the most handsome and personable bachelor in South Lake Tahoe was a testament to how screwed his life had become.

Boyce was waiting on the street when Saxton drove up. “Thanks for the ride,” he said. “The mechanic said my motor is seized, so my truck’s headed for the scrap heap.”

“What you gonna do for wheels?”

“Ever hear of a ten-speed?”

They drove a few miles around the lake and parked in the Douglas County PD lot.

“Go check out the van,” Saxton said. “I’ll get the wetbacks.”

Five minutes later Boyce pulled up to the curb, and Saxton emerged from the building with the gangbangers. Both were cuffed behind the back.

“Where are you taking us?” Rodrigo said.

“To the bus stop. You’re going back to Mexico.”

“You can’t tell us where to go,” said the other
cholo,
the stocky one with a crew cut.

“Just keep on telling me what I can and can’t do,” Boyce said, steering out of the police complex and onto the highway.

Five miles into Nevada, they turned onto a dirt road leading away from the lake. They drove down a rutted trail into the forest and stopped when the path ended in a dirt circle serving as a turnaround.

From the trees, Joe Norton and six HCU members appeared, carrying bats and lengths of two-by-four.

Saxton opened the rear doors and pulled the gangbangers out into the crisp morning air.

Rodrigo looked around, taking stock of the situation. He stuck his chin out, gesturing at the men standing in front of him.

“It takes that many of you to take me, even with my hands cuffed?” Rodrigo spat, his saliva spraying the ground.

Norton walked up to Rodrigo and slapped him across the face, not hard, just enough to taunt him. “Shut up, you little bitch,” Norton said.

“Take my cuffs off and we’ll see who the bitch is.”

Dave Boyce stepped between Rodrigo and Norton. “How about you and me? I’m about your size,
cholo. Mano e mano
.”

“You want to fight me? What happens if I beat your ass?”

“Then no one will mess with you. You have my word. My partner will even give you a ride home.”

Rodrigo stared at Boyce. “I don’t believe you, but you wanna fight, let’s do it, homes.”

Boyce removed the cuffs from Rodrigo’s wrists. The moment he was free Rodrigo tried to stomp Boyce’s foot, but Boyce danced away, then came back and feinted with a left jab. Rodrigo sidestepped and rushed forward with a series of furious punches, one clipping Boyce’s head and drawing blood above the eye.

Boyce moved laterally and smiled. “That all you got?”

Rodrigo came at him again, wild with adrenalin, punching and kicking in a blur. Boyce blocked a left hook and stunned Rodrigo with a hard jab to the face, then threw a snap kick, the ball of his foot driving into his opponent’s midsection.

Rodrigo staggered back, blood streaming from his nose, his features contorted in pain. Boyce flew at him with a spinning back kick, the point of his heel spiking into the gangbanger’s thigh. Rodrigo dropped to a knee.

“Get up,
puta,
or I’ll beat you to death,” Boyce said.

Rodrigo pushed himself up, his eyes feral and black with rage, but as soon as he stood, Boyce whipped a kick into his ribs, then threw a right hand that broke Rodrigo’s jaw with a sickening crunch. Boyce followed with an uppercut before Saxton grabbed him from behind, pinning his arms and walking him backward.

“Easy, Dave, no need to kill him.”

Saxton waited until he could feel the tension in Boyce’s body ease before letting him free. They stood looking at Rodrigo, who lay in a bloody mess on the dirt.