Plaster City (A Jimmy Veeder Fiasco) (6 page)

“She used to come over a lot. We talked sometimes. But she never came to see me.”

Loud motorcycle exhaust shook the walls and drowned us out. The headlights from the bikes flashed over the closed curtain.

“Julie comes over to see my brother Gabe and his friends. That sounds like them.” Angel set down his pencil and drawing pad. He got up and lifted a corner of the curtain to look out. “You need to go. Come back when it’s just him. You need to run.”

It won’t come as a surprise. Running wasn’t in Bobby’s playbook. Running was the thing the other guy did. Running and bleeding. Too many John Ford movies had etched their way into his psyche, developing a clear—if skewed—definition of what it was to be a man. I, on the other hand, while an avid fan of classic Hollywood cinema, understood the difference between real life and make-believe. That it wasn’t unmanly to be civilized. To avoid confrontation rather than start it. At least I told myself that when my fight-or-flight instinct screamed flight.

Or maybe my face still hurt from getting pummeled by Ceja. I still hadn’t passed that tooth, and I wasn’t excited about the thought of it.

Bobby marched out the front door—and like an asshole, I was right behind him—as the three men got off their motorcycles. Or I should say, boys. Ranging from seventeen to twenty, their faces all had smooth, boyish looks. They tried for something harder, but the softness of youth betrayed them. Mexican or mixed Mexican, each boy sported a stylishly shaved head. I wondered if bald men got angry when they saw kids with obviously full heads of thick hair shaved off on purpose. Like tap dancing in front of a man with no legs.

They were all ripped in that way that only the young can be. Defined muscles covered in tattoo sleeves, though they would have been more intimidating if one of them had been taller than five seven. Two wore wifebeaters and one—just because—was shirtless. The two with shirts had sleeveless jackets, Los Hermanos patches on the back. They could have been a boy band, if their expressions didn’t telegraph the enormous chips on their shoulders.

“Should’ve grabbed my Plan Bs back,” Bobby said under his breath. “If this uglies up, the one on the right is yours. You handle that?”

I wanted to say no and get the fuck out of Dodge. Instead, I nodded.

“Don’t go back on your heels. Balls of your feet,” Bobby said.

“I’ve done this before.”

“I know. I’ve seen you. Thought a few pointers couldn’t hurt.”

I glanced around the yard for a potential weapon. Hoping for a shovel, garden hoe, or even a decent-sized rock, I found nothing. I mentally prepped myself for some eye-gouging and ball-kicking. Unfortunately, with their shaved heads, hair-pulling was off the table.

“Hey,” Bobby said, “how you doing tonight? Which one of you tough guys is Gabe?”

The alpha of the pack broke off from the other two and strutted toward us. He would have had a baby face, except for his eyes. The distrustful eyes of a kid who grew up poor. The look of unkept promises and abandoned dreams. Santa had stiffed him one year too many.

For a long while, Baby Face didn’t say a word, only tilted his head as if asking a question. Fronting, I think the kids called it. I don’t think he blinked. His boys took a couple steps forward to remind us they were there. I hadn’t forgotten, but I appreciated the gesture. I took a step forward, too. I had no idea why.

“Hey, Gabe, you order a shitty Mexican Elvis?” Baby Face never took his eyes off Bobby. “Who the fuck are you,
ese
?”

“I ain’t going to fuck around, waste your time. You obviously got important gangster shit to do,” Bobby said, eyes laser-pointing back at the kid. “I’m Julie Espinosa’s dad. I think you know her. I think Gabe knows her.”

Baby Face stared back, his eyelids dropping to half-mast in exaggerated boredom. A bit more head tilt.

The shirtless boy separated himself from the other one. “Julie don’t got no dad.”

“C
á
llate,” Baby Face growled.

“But Chucho—”

“Shut the fuck up, Gabe.” Chucho, aka Baby Face, had spoken. Gabe looked down at his feet.

Bobby gave me a nod toward Gabe, but I had already spotted his neck tattoo. The tattoo of a bird. Similar—if not identical—in style to the drawings in Julie’s room. Down to the rough scribbling of an angry artist’s ballpoint.

“Nobody knows where Julie’s at.” Bobby looked past Chucho to Gabe. “Nobody’s seen her for almost a week. Maybe you know where she’s at. Or maybe you can help me find her. Not looking for trouble, just my daughter.”

Gabe opened his mouth to speak, but Chucho got words in first. “Don’t matter you wasn’t looking. You found trouble, bitch. Gabe ain’t telling you shit.”

Chucho was itching for a fight. At three against two, he must have figured an easy win. A little bit of fun. In Thermal, like most small desert towns, violence was entertainment. Better to be bruised than bored.

“I’ll tell you why you’re going to talk to me,” Bobby said through gritted teeth. “Because if any of you knows something and doesn’t tell me—right now—and let’s say, God forbid, something bad happens to Julie, it’ll be your fault. And I’ll punish the fuck out of you. You’ll have a new enemy. I don’t know if there’s a good kind of enemy. But I ain’t that kind. I’m the worst kind.

“But that’s later. Look at now. Don’t matter there are three of you and two of us. I’m a father. My daughter is missing. I’m frantic and scared and angry and have a lot of other weird feelings churning inside me. I am Vesuvius. That’s a volcano, if you ignorants don’t know. And I’m ready to fucking erupt. You pretty-boys might think you’re badass, but you ain’t tangled with Bobby Maves. Fuck with me and I’ll destroy you.”

“So much for diplomacy,” I said.

“Fuck diplomacy in the ass. If we can’t get information, at least we can get a workout.”

Chucho had no idea what to do with that. These boys were used to being the intimidators, not the intimidated. They were young, muscled, tattooed, and Mexican. Ninety-nine percent of the people they came in contact with crossed the street to avoid them. Bobby didn’t just not avoid them, he asked them to dance. And from their faces, they knew it wasn’t a bluff.

I stepped in, seeing if I could salvage peace. “Look—Chucho, right?—it’s okay to back off. You’re not pussing out. You don’t got to prove nothing. It’s all cool. Let’s crack open some cervezas and talk. We didn’t know you three minutes ago. I didn’t even know there were Mexican bikers. We’re just trying to find the girl.”

I felt good about my succinct, logical argument. But moron trumps logic every time.

“Fuck you and fuck this white-haired fuck,” Chucho said fuckingly. He telegraphed his punch. Bobby slipped it and snapped a quick jab that broke his nose with a wet crack.

“Fuck me,” I said, turning quickly. As Bobby had assessed, I got the Mexican biker on the right, who I will refer to as Cold Sore. The name is not ironic.

I didn’t have time to duck Cold Sore’s punch, but it was a wide, lumbering thing. I tucked my chin into my chest and shifted slightly to my right. The result had Cold Sore hitting me square on the top of my head, all skull. His fat biker ring cut me, but I heard at least one knuckle pop. He reeled back, cradling his damaged paw.

I stomped down on his foot and gave him a hard punch to the center of his chest. The face is overrated. I’d rather punch a fucker in the body any time. It’s a bigger target and I won’t hurt my hand. I also didn’t like the look of that cold sore.

Cold Sore stumbled backward, slamming against his motorcycle and tumbling over it. He scrambled to his feet quicker than I thought, but he was still off balance when I kicked him in the shin, spit in his face, and slapped him with an open hand. The angrier people got, the dumber they fought. I wanted him seeing red.

“Quit fighting like a little bitch,” Cold Sore said.

I evaded his left easily. His right didn’t appear to be in his arsenal anymore. A broken finger will do that. The swollen hand looked like an inflated rubber glove.

I ducked his next punch, pushed myself against him, grabbed his broken fingers with my left hand, and squeezed. He screamed. With my right, I threw body shots, whaling on the same spot again and again. He had no leverage to hit back effectively. He made an effort to get an arm around my neck, but his ribs must have been jelly after the fifth or sixth punch. When I let go of his hand, he folded to the ground.

I kicked him in the face. He fell back against his bike again. This time, he stayed down.

I looked to Bobby to see if he needed any help.

Yeah, right.

Holding onto Gabe’s belt, he dragged the shirtless kid over to the Ranchero. Chucho was laid out on the ground like he fell asleep making a dirt angel in the front yard.

That’s a common sight when you tangle with Bobby Maves. People on the ground and Bobby walking away. Bobby had warned them.

“That your blood or his?” Bobby asked.

I rubbed my hand across my wet forehead and looked at the blood. I felt the top of my head and found where Cold Sore’s ring had struck.

“Kid’s ring cut the top of my head. Doesn’t feel deep.”

“Yeah, heads bleed more than anywhere. You look like a Sissy.” Bobby laughed. “Spacek, that is. You know, in
Carrie
.”

“I got it.”

“We need to skedaddle,” Bobby said, leaning the kid against the Ranchero’s back tire. “When these dumbasses come to, they’re going to be pissy. Might find some weapons. Punks like these can’t take a beating and learn from it. Mexicans love revenge. It’s cultural. They always got to be a dick about it. Escalate the violence. If we had time, I’d teach them a few more lessons, but we got to talk to Gabe.”

Bobby picked him up by the belt with one hand and grabbed him by the thigh with the other. With some effort, he threw the kid into the bed of the Ranchero. Gabe rolled against the wheel well and groaned, his eyes fluttering open.

“Fuck,” Bobby said, looking at the house.

“What?” I turned quickly, expecting a Mexican biker to jump me.

“My fighting pipes.”

I let out a relieved breath. “It’s not like they’re hard to make.”

“Those ones got memories. Sentimental value. They’re my favorites.”

“You’ll have to make new memories.”

Bobby looked at me like I couldn’t possibly understand. “Hop in back and make sure the kid don’t escape. I know a place we can chat. It ain’t far.”

“Quick voice of reason. This is close to kidnapping. And when I say, ‘close,’ I mean it is kidnapping. You know that, right?”

“He ain’t no kid. You really want to stick around?”

I looked at the two Mexicans starting to stir. “Yeah, okay. Fuck that.”

I jumped in the bed of the Ranchero with the kid. He looked at me, not scared but drained of any tough veneer.

“Angel, Miguel, and Gabriel?” I said. “Your mom must have a thing for angels. Consider yourself lucky. You could have been named Metatron.”

He blinked at me. “I don’t get it. That like a Transformer?”

“Never mind. Sadly trying to justify a semester of Religious Studies. Still paying the loans, might as well get some use.”

“Whatever. Don’t let that crazy albino hurt me no more and I’ll laugh at all your shitty jokes.”

Bobby pulled away and headed down the road. In the dying light, I watched Gabe’s two pals slowly get to their feet. They didn’t look like they had any interest in following. Behind them, I caught a glimpse of Angel looking out his bedroom window. It almost looked like he was smiling.

FOUR

“How’s everything going?” Angie asked on the other end of the phone.

I had no idea. We had beaten the shit out of some young Mexican motorcycle enthusiasts. The fact that that felt like a step in the right direction really illustrated how little we knew about what we were doing.

Driving in the back of Bobby’s Ranchero with the kid, looking at his face, at the unnecessary violence, my brain told me to go home. Bobby didn’t
need me and if I wasn’t careful I could get in real trouble. And that trouble would have consequences. Then, just as quickly, I felt like an asshole for even thinking about going home.

Talking to Angie, hearing her voice, reminded me of the real life waiting for me. It felt like days, not hours since I had been home. Probably what it’s like when you first arrive to the battlefield after being drafted into a war.

“We’ve got some leads. Talking to some people,” I said. No reason to mention certain violences. Avoiding details wasn’t officially lying.

I glanced over my shoulder to check on the action. Bobby stood over Gabe, who sat on the ground and listened to whatever Bobby was explain-yelling at him. I was too far away to hear, but Bobby’s hand gestures were animated. From the distance, it looked like he was doing his orangutan impersonation (which was very good). Gabe tried to act tough at first. He now looked resigned to having been bested.

According to the rusted sign out front, we had ended up on the edge of Thermal in Toro Cemetery. One of those desert cemeteries that had three tall salt cedars, no grass, and gravestones faded to the color of chalk. This cemetery sat next to a park and a baseball field, some of the gravestones overlapping into centerfield. I assumed they were in the field of play, but it would take a brave outfielder to dive for any ball for fear of a concussion or ghost.

“We still got no reason to believe anything other than she’s run off. Which is good,” I said. “How’s Juan doing?”

“He’s been real quiet, kind of brooding,” Angie said, “but he usually gets like that when you go away. He called me Angie at dinner. Not Mom, but Angie. He’s never done that before.”

“Just another way to act out.”

Headlights lit up the gravestones. I turned to see a Honda Civic bouncing down the dirt road leading to the cemetery. Moonlight lit the wake of dust. A hubcap flew to the side when the car bottomed out in a deep rut. The Civic slid to a stop twenty feet from Bobby and the kid.

“Oh, shit. Angie, babe. I got to go. I’ll call later if it’s not too late. Sorry. I love you.” I hung up and quick-stepped over.

Becky leapt out of the Civic, slammed the driver’s door, and fast-walked to Bobby and Gabe. In an act of mercy, Bobby stood between her and the kid, one hand on Becky’s arm. He whispered something in her ear. She nodded and Bobby let her go. Becky took a deep breath and leaned down to Gabe. He looked scared. Smart kid.

“Listen, kid.” Becky spit-sprayed Gabe’s face. “I don’t care what kind of teenage shit you and Julie are up to. I want to talk to my daughter. Know she’s safe.”

Bobby cut in. “If the two of you are thinking about running off or shacking up or whatever the fuck, we’ll deal with that another time. Right now, me and her mother, we need to talk to our girl.”

Becky took over. The poor kid was being tag-teamed. “Wherever she is, whatever she’s doing, we need to know that she’s there because she wants to be. I’m scared for her.”

Bobby put a hand on the kid’s shoulder. He flinched. “Think about it, Gabe. We got no interest in messing with you or your life. I ain’t the kind of dad that gets wood from intimidating the prom date. I’m here to make sure Julie’s alive and unfucked with. That’s all I care about. You help, I’ll thank you. You get in the way, I’ll hurt you.”

Bobby looked to Becky to see if she had anything to add. She shook her head. I watched from a distance, definitely not my show. I felt like a bystander, a Peeping Tom.

Gabe looked up with fear in his eyes. “I ain’t seen Julie. For real. I know her good, but I ain’t seen her. Not in a long time. I swear. I don’t know where she’s at.”

“You’re her boyfriend?” Becky asked.

“Was, I guess. Not no more. I liked her a lot. We used to hang out, nothing special. She liked riding on my bike. Or she’d come over, we’d drink some beers, do stuff.”

“Stuff?” Bobby asked, menace in his voice.

“Come on, man, her moms is right here. You really want the play-by-play? Shit, you already kicked my ass once tonight, I don’t want to get buried up in this graveyard.”

I looked around at the aged and chipped headstones. Whether on accident or consciously, Bobby had chosen an effective and intimidating setting.

“How old are you?” Becky asked.

“Nineteen.”

“Julie’s sixteen. Did you know that?”

Gabe shrugged and grinned. Not his best choice. Bobby cuffed him on the side of the head. Gabe nodded. He knew he deserved that one.

“She’s like sixteen on paper. But she’s mature and shit. Smart, you know. She reads books. Like for fun. And even the ones for school, she liked some of them too. Not like any of the chicas ’round here, not even the older ones, ones at the junior college. More interested in their hair. She might’ve been born sixteen years ago, but she’s grown up.”

Bobby pinched the bridge of his nose and shook his head. “She hasn’t called you?”

“Nothing. I told you. I ain’t seen her—talked to her—in like a month. I don’t know how to tell it better, she was done with me. Real cold, you know. Not even like I was a toy she didn’t like playing with. More like she didn’t play with toys no more, and forgot she ever did.”

Becky snorted and said, “Maybe she just didn’t like your ass no more. Or are you like God’s gift?”

“I ain’t nothing. She changed, got different. When we met, neither of us had any bread. So we’d just hang out. She’d draw with Angel while I cleaned parts. Shit like that. But once she got some money, that shit was done. Once she started working, it was different.”

“Where’d she get the money? What was she doing?” Bobby asked.

“Chucho told me she started working for some dude in La Quinta. Some rich dude. Said he drove a camo Hummer. Had an aquarium and works of art. A big pool in the backyard. She never talked about it, and when I asked she didn’t tell me shit. Sometimes she’d be gone a couple days. One time she came back, had a fucking shiner.”

“A black eye?” Bobby said, turning to Becky.

Becky nodded. “She said she got it in gym. About a month ago.”

“Your friend Chucho tell you what she was doing for this guy?” Bobby asked.

“No. You’d have to ask him.”

“Even if I find his ass, I doubt he’s going to want to chat.”

“Oh, Christ,” Becky said, pacing a little, her hands moving without her control. “What the fuck are you doing, Julie?”

“Beck,” Bobby said, “there are tons of things she could’ve been doing. Cleaning house, doing the books. None of them got to be bad.”

“She’s missing, Bobby. House cleaners and personal assistants and pool cleaners don’t disappear. It’s the other people that do. Girls that do things.”

And without warning, Becky lost it and started kicking Gabe. I don’t think she knew it was going to happen, just needed something to attack. She kicked him three times hard in the side.

Gabe rolled up in a ball. “Get her off me. Get her off me.”

Bobby and I pulled Becky back as she kicked air. I got an arm around her chest and held her tight against my body. She slowly calmed. Bobby helped Gabe up. “You know this rich dude’s name? Where he lives?”

He shook his head, keeping one eye on Becky. “La Quinta is all I know.”

La Quinta was Palm Springs Light, all golf courses and rich people and snowbirds, but without the class. A place where old white people and Mexicans could live together in peace, as long as the Mexicans were doing the dishes and mowing the lawns. Merv Griffin used to live in La Quinta. Merv fucking Griffin.

“You done?” I said into Becky’s ear.

She nodded and I let her go, my sidekick duties complete. She eyeballed Gabe. He cowered, but Becky kept her distance.

“Why didn’t you talk to me back at your house?” Bobby said to Gabe with honest bewilderment. “We didn’t need to do all this.”

“You got me wrong, Julie’s Dad. I ain’t no fighter. That’s Chucho. Chucho’s an asshole. Rides with Los Hos. They think they’re the Mexican Hells Angels. I ain’t one of them. I fix their bikes, that’s all. Chucho’s always starting shit. He’s a fucking estupido. But what can I do? Known him all my life. He’s my boy. I got to have his back.”

“You need better friends,” I said.

Gabe looked at me, like he had forgotten I was there. “You’re here with your boy. Got to back your homies, no matter if they’re right.”

“I ain’t doing nothing he wouldn’t do for me,” I said. “But if your buddy is always starting shit, always needing backup, and never’s got your back, that dude ain’t your friend.”

“What is this?
Sesame Street
?” Gabe said. “Learning about friendship and shit.”

Bobby tossed me his keys. “I’m going to take Becky’s car. She’s too amped to drive. We’ll take the kid back to his house, then I’ll take Becky home. Your truck’s over at her place. Give me your keys. We’ll meet up later.”

I handed my keys to Bobby. “Christ, we even make arranging cars complicated. I’ll grab a motel room somewhere. You staying at Becky’s?”

“Too weird. I’ll crash with you. We can have some beers, make some kind of plan of attack.”

“How we feeling about the kid?”

Bobby and I looked over at Gabe. He leaned against the Civic, a watchful eye on Becky. But she just sat in the passenger seat and stared out the windshield.

“Not sure,” Bobby said. “Felt like truth, some punk Julie dated, but that crowd he’s running with—what did he say, Los Hos?—they’ve got to be involved with more than only riding their scooters around. Have to talk to that Chucho. Those boys might not got nothing to do with Julie, but you don’t do that outlaw shit as a grown-up and stay spotless.”

“Bad boys aren’t always that bad. Could just be their look, trying to get laid.”

“You’ve only been back a couple years, Jimmy. You forget living in the desert puts you at ground zero of the War on Boredom, a never-ending fight to stay
awake. People do the stupidest shit when they’re bored. And don’t think I don’t realize I’m talking about myself, too.”

“I’m fine with letting Gabe go home. We know where he lives,” I said.

Bobby kicked a rock. “I fucking hate this.”

“We’ll find your girl, Bobby.”

“Yeah, maybe. But it don’t sound like she’s a girl no more.”

I was on a lean budget, so I found the cheapest motel in the vicinity. And that’s saying something when you’re on the outskirts of Indio, California. I checked into the Date Palm Motel, a by-the-hour motor court whose denizens appeared to run the gamut from bathtub meth cooks and their part-time prostitute girlfriends to four generations of Mexicans living together in a single room. But it was nineteen dollars a night and I was eighty-five percent sure I wasn’t going to catch chlamydia or scabies from the toilet seat. Maybe more like eighty percent. Let’s split the difference and say eighty-two and a half.