Off Topic
Travelblog of Thom S. Hunter
Editor’s Note: Dammit. Far as I can tell this idiot idea of a beat reporter is going to stick. Guess he’s got low friends in high places. Or at least high friends. And I like to eat, and I got a wife and three kids (that I know of) who need clothes and sneakers. So I got nothing to do but to let the guy write whatever he writes. Good luck reading it. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.
We were somewhere around Morro Bay on the edge of the woodlands when, apparently, the drugs began to take hold. I remember Foghorn saying something like “I feel a bit lightheaded; maybe you should drive…” And suddenly there was a terrible roar all around us and the sky was full of what had to look like huge bats, all swooping and screeching and driving around the car, which was going about a hundred miles an hour. And a voice was screaming “Holy Jesus! Don’t you get it! Don’t you get it? It’s the damned girl! And another, which I know now was mine, was screaming “You got to calm the hell down, Foggy! You got to calm the hell down!”
Foghorn hit the brakes and the squeal came fishtailing alongside the smell of cooking tires that hit like a sledgehammer. We careened left then right, off the road bouncing like a dune buggy on the rocks off wide and toward the dark-dark woods. And stopped, the engine pinging hot when Foggy turned the sumbitch off.
Then it was quiet again.
Foghorn got the hell out of the car, screaming something about crows and the girl and about a hundred other things that made no real sense, and he ran, and ran, and ran.
I was gonna go get his ass, but by the time I was out of the car, he was already swallowed up by the woodlands and the vines, and I figured that nothing about chasing his ass down wast going to come to any good. Son of a bitch took the keys, though. “What the hell was that?” I said, standing up from the car to peer first to the woods where Foghorn disappeared and then back at the road while a pair of other cars whizzed past. It was getting late. Sun almost all the way down under the ocean out on the left. The chill cracked like dry wood. Numbers started to click in for me, though, and none of the numbers were adding up to anything good either.
Foghorn was out running with the wolves, or the banshee, or whatever the hell had gotten into him. I was stuck here by the car. With Louey. With L-Pain. Dead L-Pain, to be sure. Dead Louey wrapped up in a tarp in the trunk of a now abandoned car on the berm of the I-5 as sure as if I was just waiting for a copper to come by and make a real mess of my situation.
Unfortunately, what came instead—in the form of a sight about as welcome as a sacrifice bunt with two out—was considerably worse than any copper. Didn’t take a super-computer to know the big black deluxe hover van, complete with the throw-back logo of the Long Beach Surfers hand-painted at the window wells pulling up beside the road was a helluvalota worse than your run of the mill traffic cop. For a moment, I thanked the crows or the green-eyed woman, or—for that matter—the girl, whoever she was, that Foghorn hadn’t decked the crappy old Cutlass out in Sacramento Mad Popes regalia. If there’s anything the old gang hates more than a fucking California Crusader, it’s a Sacramento Mad Pope fan who thinks they can get away with pretending they aren’t the Crusaders. Fifty-fifty Descartes just blows the car up if it’s decked out in fake Crusader gear.
Despite the years I knew both the hulks that stepped out of the gullwing doors that sprung open black as crows’ wings. I’d swear I heard the voice of Darth Vadar himself coming across the way as they straightened their jackets.
“Shorty,” I said as the first flunky stepped in closer, picking his feet up to avoid the unmowed grass around the woods. “Tailwind,” I nodded to the other, noting that they both wore cark visors despite the evening gloom. Fashionable. Between them was the well-proportioned body of a guy who looked like he could afford to spend six hours a day in the gym and wore a thin T-Shirt that showed he took full advantage of the time. I twisted my lips sideways and took a breath before I met his gaze.
“Descartes,” I said finally, feeling my heart getting up to about six sizes too big for my ribcage.
“Little Thommy Hunter,” the man said with a voice calm enough to say he knew he owned a big chunk of southern California, even this far north. “Imagine my surprise. What happened to your buddy?”
The singular on that question made me think they didn’t know there were two other guys with me at one point, which means they didn’t know of the close-by whereabouts of L-Pain.
“Not sure,” I answered, twirling my finger around my ear in the universal sign for crazy. “Think he was seeing bats and crows. Took a flyer into the woods. I’m figuring even odds on whether he makes it back before a bear eats him.”
Descartes didn’t seem worried. He nodded at my assessment, then sighed as he gave me a long-faced once over. “Last I saw you, the chips you cashed turned out to be hollow and the girl you was chasin’ turned out to be full of stories about stuff you sold but didn’t have.”
“I’m sure it’s a misunderstanding,” I said. “That was back a when I was giging for the Yellow Springs gang,” I said. “I had a ticket to watch AA down in Santa Cruz,” I said again. “That’s all. Didn’t mean nothing by it.” My thinker had got to thinking about then, though. And what it got to thinking about was L-Pain in the trunk, and Foghorn in the woods, and what kinda story I might be able to make that would bring them to bear right and good in my defense.
“I’m thinking you might need a ride back to the holy land,” Descartes said. “And I just happen to have a seat open in the van.”
It was an invitation I know I couldn’t refuse, but one I wasn’t inclined to take—except for that fact that there didn’t seem much other option. My fingers rubbed nervously on my pant pocket then, and I felt the my phone cube, which got me going and which got my brain to hitting on an angle, and even though I didn’t know where the angle led yet, I figured I should take it and just find out. That’s how things are for me sometimes. See a door, open a door, figure out how to deal with whatever sits behind it then.
“Yeah,” I said. “I do need a ride, now’s you think about it. And I got a bit of a story for you, too.”
“I’m not sure I like your kind of stories.”
“You’ll like this one,” I replied. “I hooked up with the guy in this car in the LB. He and another dude were looking up dirt for the fuckin’ Crusaders. Figured my new boss would wanna know about that. So that’s why I jumped in.”
“New boss?”
“Working for the Atoll now,” I said.
“My condolences,” Descartes said.
“Anyways,” I kept going. “There’s a water jug still half full they was deliverin’ to the green-eyed thing that they say lives in the basement down there.”
“A water jug? Seriously, Little Thommy H, do you think I’m an idiot?”
“I’m serious as a Tchekanov heater from the old days, man. There’s something in it. Least that’s what the doofus they sent to collect up the sample said before he got looney and ran off into the wolves den. Said it was something in the water killing off all the Long Beach pitchers one by one. The greenie thought it was real enough she wanted to check it out, so she sent in the Stooges.”
Descartes stared two beats at me, then nodded his head to Tailwind, and waited while the lanky mobster went to the Cutlass and peered into the seat. “Checks out, Boss. There’s a jug here. Got a Surfer seal on it, too. Musta come from the VC,” he called. The VC is the Vito Constantino Memorial Stadium, home of their beloved Surfers.
“Bring it,” Descartes said, looking at me with a new respect.
The man grunted as he hefted the jug and made his way back.
“There’s more, too,” I said, whipping out L-Pain’s phone. “Some guy called one of them. Said he needed delivery early.”
“What’s that mean?”
“Not a clue. But cat’s name was Walt. Recording’s on the phone. I figure one of your magic network guys can to the doubledy-back and figure out where it came from. Gonna guess there’s a business angle here someplace.”
I handed him the phone. Sure, it was L-Pain’s but I figured he wasn’t planning on using it any time soon. Descartes looked at the device, palmed it, and slipped it into his tight pant pocket. “All right, Little Thommy Hunter. This checks out, maybe we consider it payment for past debts,” he said.
“It’ll check,” I replied confidently simply because I understood that the other side of Descartes’ what if was a suicide squeeze with me as the runner. “Like I said. The guy’s name that called is Walt,” I said. “Gotta figure he’s with a team someplace.”
Descartes looked at his muscle. “Let’s go.”
“What do we do with the car?” Shorty said.
“Torch it,” Descartes said, glancing at the sloshing jug that Tailwind was lugging back. “Can’t have any fucking Crusader scum showing up in the LB and taking our stuff without making a point.”
For a moment it struck me that I might oughtta tell the guys about L-Pain in the back seat, but I figured once again that this kind of conversation can’t get me anyplace good. And really, since no one knew I was here, a crisped Cutlass is a Cutlass that couldn’t be showing my prints to anyone in law enforcement, either.
Two crows, one bomb. Sounded like a deal to me.
The sun had set by now, and it was dark. The guys got to work prepping L-Pain’s funeral pyre. Descartes and I headed back to the sleek black hover van, shoes whipping though the long dark grasses of the berm. As we sat down, L-Pain’s phone rang again. Descartes pulled it from his pocket and gave me the side-eye, holding the device out in the palm of his hand. I took the phone, and answered it on speaker.
“Hello,” I said.
The number registered as coming from somewhere in the central regions of Oregon this time. Portland, I thought quickly. Crap.
“Louey,” the voice said. Female this time. “I got your notes on the water. We’re interested.”
I hesitated maybe a beat too long, then twisted my voice as I replied. “That’s great. So how much can I do you for?”
The silence that came back was a touch too long, too. “Sorry,” she replied. “Musta got the wrong number.” Then the phone went dead.
I looked up.
The curl that came to Descartes’s lips was a thing of art. Just the right amount of enlightened, entertained, and cruel all together.
“I see,” he said as he took the phone back. “I think this is going to be fun.”
We were somewhere around Morro Bay on the edge of the woodlands when, apparently, the drugs began to take hold. I remember Foghorn saying something like “I feel a bit lightheaded; maybe you should drive…” And suddenly there was a terrible roar all around us and the sky was full of what had to look like huge bats, all swooping and screeching and driving around the car, which was going about a hundred miles an hour. And a voice was screaming “Holy Jesus! Don’t you get it! Don’t you get it? It’s the damned girl! And another, which I know now was mine, was screaming “You got to calm the hell down, Foggy! You got to calm the hell down!”
Foghorn hit the brakes and the squeal came fishtailing alongside the smell of cooking tires that hit like a sledgehammer. We careened left then right, off the road bouncing like a dune buggy on the rocks off wide and toward the dark-dark woods. And stopped, the engine pinging hot when Foggy turned the sumbitch off.
Then it was quiet again.
Foghorn got the hell out of the car, screaming something about crows and the girl and about a hundred other things that made no real sense, and he ran, and ran, and ran.
I was gonna go get his ass, but by the time I was out of the car, he was already swallowed up by the woodlands and the vines, and I figured that nothing about chasing his ass down wast going to come to any good. Son of a bitch took the keys, though. “What the hell was that?” I said, standing up from the car to peer first to the woods where Foghorn disappeared and then back at the road while a pair of other cars whizzed past. It was getting late. Sun almost all the way down under the ocean out on the left. The chill cracked like dry wood. Numbers started to click in for me, though, and none of the numbers were adding up to anything good either.
Foghorn was out running with the wolves, or the banshee, or whatever the hell had gotten into him. I was stuck here by the car. With Louey. With L-Pain. Dead L-Pain, to be sure. Dead Louey wrapped up in a tarp in the trunk of a now abandoned car on the berm of the I-5 as sure as if I was just waiting for a copper to come by and make a real mess of my situation.
Unfortunately, what came instead—in the form of a sight about as welcome as a sacrifice bunt with two out—was considerably worse than any copper. Didn’t take a super-computer to know the big black deluxe hover van, complete with the throw-back logo of the Long Beach Surfers hand-painted at the window wells pulling up beside the road was a helluvalota worse than your run of the mill traffic cop. For a moment, I thanked the crows or the green-eyed woman, or—for that matter—the girl, whoever she was, that Foghorn hadn’t decked the crappy old Cutlass out in Sacramento Mad Popes regalia. If there’s anything the old gang hates more than a fucking California Crusader, it’s a Sacramento Mad Pope fan who thinks they can get away with pretending they aren’t the Crusaders. Fifty-fifty Descartes just blows the car up if it’s decked out in fake Crusader gear.
Despite the years I knew both the hulks that stepped out of the gullwing doors that sprung open black as crows’ wings. I’d swear I heard the voice of Darth Vadar himself coming across the way as they straightened their jackets.
“Shorty,” I said as the first flunky stepped in closer, picking his feet up to avoid the unmowed grass around the woods. “Tailwind,” I nodded to the other, noting that they both wore cark visors despite the evening gloom. Fashionable. Between them was the well-proportioned body of a guy who looked like he could afford to spend six hours a day in the gym and wore a thin T-Shirt that showed he took full advantage of the time. I twisted my lips sideways and took a breath before I met his gaze.
“Descartes,” I said finally, feeling my heart getting up to about six sizes too big for my ribcage.
“Little Thommy Hunter,” the man said with a voice calm enough to say he knew he owned a big chunk of southern California, even this far north. “Imagine my surprise. What happened to your buddy?”
The singular on that question made me think they didn’t know there were two other guys with me at one point, which means they didn’t know of the close-by whereabouts of L-Pain.
“Not sure,” I answered, twirling my finger around my ear in the universal sign for crazy. “Think he was seeing bats and crows. Took a flyer into the woods. I’m figuring even odds on whether he makes it back before a bear eats him.”
Descartes didn’t seem worried. He nodded at my assessment, then sighed as he gave me a long-faced once over. “Last I saw you, the chips you cashed turned out to be hollow and the girl you was chasin’ turned out to be full of stories about stuff you sold but didn’t have.”
“I’m sure it’s a misunderstanding,” I said. “That was back a when I was giging for the Yellow Springs gang,” I said. “I had a ticket to watch AA down in Santa Cruz,” I said again. “That’s all. Didn’t mean nothing by it.” My thinker had got to thinking about then, though. And what it got to thinking about was L-Pain in the trunk, and Foghorn in the woods, and what kinda story I might be able to make that would bring them to bear right and good in my defense.
“I’m thinking you might need a ride back to the holy land,” Descartes said. “And I just happen to have a seat open in the van.”
It was an invitation I know I couldn’t refuse, but one I wasn’t inclined to take—except for that fact that there didn’t seem much other option. My fingers rubbed nervously on my pant pocket then, and I felt the my phone cube, which got me going and which got my brain to hitting on an angle, and even though I didn’t know where the angle led yet, I figured I should take it and just find out. That’s how things are for me sometimes. See a door, open a door, figure out how to deal with whatever sits behind it then.
“Yeah,” I said. “I do need a ride, now’s you think about it. And I got a bit of a story for you, too.”
“I’m not sure I like your kind of stories.”
“You’ll like this one,” I replied. “I hooked up with the guy in this car in the LB. He and another dude were looking up dirt for the fuckin’ Crusaders. Figured my new boss would wanna know about that. So that’s why I jumped in.”
“New boss?”
“Working for the Atoll now,” I said.
“My condolences,” Descartes said.
“Anyways,” I kept going. “There’s a water jug still half full they was deliverin’ to the green-eyed thing that they say lives in the basement down there.”
“A water jug? Seriously, Little Thommy H, do you think I’m an idiot?”
“I’m serious as a Tchekanov heater from the old days, man. There’s something in it. Least that’s what the doofus they sent to collect up the sample said before he got looney and ran off into the wolves den. Said it was something in the water killing off all the Long Beach pitchers one by one. The greenie thought it was real enough she wanted to check it out, so she sent in the Stooges.”
Descartes stared two beats at me, then nodded his head to Tailwind, and waited while the lanky mobster went to the Cutlass and peered into the seat. “Checks out, Boss. There’s a jug here. Got a Surfer seal on it, too. Musta come from the VC,” he called. The VC is the Vito Constantino Memorial Stadium, home of their beloved Surfers.
“Bring it,” Descartes said, looking at me with a new respect.
The man grunted as he hefted the jug and made his way back.
“There’s more, too,” I said, whipping out L-Pain’s phone. “Some guy called one of them. Said he needed delivery early.”
“What’s that mean?”
“Not a clue. But cat’s name was Walt. Recording’s on the phone. I figure one of your magic network guys can to the doubledy-back and figure out where it came from. Gonna guess there’s a business angle here someplace.”
I handed him the phone. Sure, it was L-Pain’s but I figured he wasn’t planning on using it any time soon. Descartes looked at the device, palmed it, and slipped it into his tight pant pocket. “All right, Little Thommy Hunter. This checks out, maybe we consider it payment for past debts,” he said.
“It’ll check,” I replied confidently simply because I understood that the other side of Descartes’ what if was a suicide squeeze with me as the runner. “Like I said. The guy’s name that called is Walt,” I said. “Gotta figure he’s with a team someplace.”
Descartes looked at his muscle. “Let’s go.”
“What do we do with the car?” Shorty said.
“Torch it,” Descartes said, glancing at the sloshing jug that Tailwind was lugging back. “Can’t have any fucking Crusader scum showing up in the LB and taking our stuff without making a point.”
For a moment it struck me that I might oughtta tell the guys about L-Pain in the back seat, but I figured once again that this kind of conversation can’t get me anyplace good. And really, since no one knew I was here, a crisped Cutlass is a Cutlass that couldn’t be showing my prints to anyone in law enforcement, either.
Two crows, one bomb. Sounded like a deal to me.
The sun had set by now, and it was dark. The guys got to work prepping L-Pain’s funeral pyre. Descartes and I headed back to the sleek black hover van, shoes whipping though the long dark grasses of the berm. As we sat down, L-Pain’s phone rang again. Descartes pulled it from his pocket and gave me the side-eye, holding the device out in the palm of his hand. I took the phone, and answered it on speaker.
“Hello,” I said.
The number registered as coming from somewhere in the central regions of Oregon this time. Portland, I thought quickly. Crap.
“Louey,” the voice said. Female this time. “I got your notes on the water. We’re interested.”
I hesitated maybe a beat too long, then twisted my voice as I replied. “That’s great. So how much can I do you for?”
The silence that came back was a touch too long, too. “Sorry,” she replied. “Musta got the wrong number.” Then the phone went dead.
I looked up.
The curl that came to Descartes’s lips was a thing of art. Just the right amount of enlightened, entertained, and cruel all together.
“I see,” he said as he took the phone back. “I think this is going to be fun.”
