28 – No time for breakfast

 

No sage brush blew out the open gate. But Lance felt the emptiness as soon as he pulled the van in the yard. A ghost town already after a single night. Little of Gil's magic remained in the wood and stone to protect it against decay. The smell of desert was everywhere.

 "Now isn't that queer," Dan said, pushing up his hat with the tips of his fingers. His face looked ragged and older.

 "Where is everybody?" Sarah asked.

 "Gone by the look of it," Lance said, popping open the door. "But Mike, Marie and Chris should be around."

 "Unless, of course, someone helped them leave," Dan said, glancing around the court yard suspiciously, the mark of tires and oil visible in the dust.

 "You mean the cops?" Lance asked.

 "Them or our friends from last night," Dan said. "The place doesn't feel right either. Like it's being watched."

 Lance felt that, too, and the after-battle sense of quiet so prevalent in Vietnam. Though the scent of smoking guns and rotting bodies was missing.

 "I think we should scram," Dan said. "Before we get caught up in something."

 Lance nodded, staring at the empty place, feeling the strain on the walls as if it would all tumble down.

 "What about the others?" Sarah asked.

 "If they're not here now, they're not coming," Dan said, engaging the gears as he twisted the wheel and backed up through the gate. Lance stared into the passenger side mirror as the van righted itself and caught movement: a figure running along the outside of the house. But when he turned it had vanished.

 "So, what now?" Sarah asked sourly.

 "We get out of town. Something's wrong here."

 "I agree," Lance said.

 "I'm hungry and dirty," Sarah objected. "I was figuring on getting cleaned up." She did look ragged. Her clothing crinkled and torn from drug-induced passion.

 "Not here," Dan said. "We'll find a gas station on the highway."

 "And eat candy bars for breakfast?" Sarah growled. "I want real food."

 "Food is a good idea," Lance said, the long night had left him empty.

 "All right, we'll find a diner," Dan grumbled, but clearly didn't like the idea."

                  ***********

 The silver shell reminded Lance of home, of the Saturday morning breakfasts with his uncle as a boy, coffee and cross-buns before the plunge into fishing. But this place sat on the edge of the desert, pickup trucks and tractor trailers around it like an island dock.

 "You want to eat here?" Lance asked.

 "Not a lot of other places to choose from," Dan said.

 "We could go back into town," Sarah suggested, eyeing the place doubtfully. "It's only a mile or..."

 "No," Dan said. "It's here or no place."

 Lance tested his stomach. It wouldn't survive hours of driving without something solid. He couldn't remember the last time he'd eaten. Breakfast the previous day, maybe? God, he missed Gil's food already.

 "All right," Lance mumbled. "But let's not drag it out. We eat and go."

 Dan weaved the van to a vacant space between two flatbed trucks loaded with farm equipment and parked. The scalding heat had already started, promising a dismal day. They clamored out of the van and up the steps. Inside, the air-conditioner hummed with little effect. The place smelled of grease and sweat as hard-faced workmen looked up from their meals.

 "I can see we're real popular," Lance whispered to Dan.

 "Relax," he whispered back, then led them to a booth where the dirty dishes still cluttered the table, remnants of eggs and home fries, an attractive torture. The waitress came, smiled uncertainly, and cleared the dishes, returning quickly to take their order.

 "We don't get many of your kind here," she said, admiring Dan who grinned at her in his best L.A. grin.

 "They don't know you're here, darling," Dan said, going through the ritual of ordering without removing his eyes from her. She blushed and retreated to the kitchen. Dan sat back and lit a cigarette-- paying the price in a series of hacking coughs.

 "Damn," he said, crushing the cigarette out again. "Not a mile out of town and my goddamn lungs start up. It's a plot... Hey, what's the matter with you?"

 "There's someone staring at us," Lance said

 Dan laughed. "They're all staring at us, pal."

 "Not like this fellow," Lance whispered. Indeed, the figure seemed intent upon them while most of the others had lost interest.

 "All right, I bite," Dan mumbled, twisting around on his side of the booth. "Which one is it?"

 "The black man. At the counter. I think he came in after we did."

 "A black man?" Dan said, his face growing pale under the brim of the hat. "In here?" He looked, then turned quickly forward again. "Damn!"

 "What is it?" Sarah asked.

 "Trouble," Dan mumbled, easing another cigarette to his lips. "Why don't we just leave before it hits."

 "But we haven't eaten?" Sarah said.

 "You won't like the food we'll get served if we stay," Dan said.

 "Who is it?" Lance asked, looking over again at the black man. But the figure had stopped staring. Facing forward and ordering coffee, he looked little different from those around him. The same jeans and t-shirt and boots. And yet Lance felt something odd. "Is he a cop?"

 "I'm not sure. But I have my suspicions," Dan said, rising slowly. "Wait a minute, then follow me out. I'll have the van running by the door."

 He ambled down the aisle, taking a sharp left out at the door. The black man didn't seem to notice, both hands gripping his cup of coffee, staring at his own reflection in the mirror behind the pie case and boxes of breakfast cereal.

 An odd patience painted his face, a cool self-collected nature mocked only by the pale scar down one cheek. Silent. Careful. Deadly.

 Sarah went next, looking nervous, but innocent, like the mid-west girl Lance had found in the mountains, looking back at him only once as she plunge out after Dan.

 Lance rose and deposited three wrinkled singles next to the empty plates, then turned to follow Dan and Sarah. He almost reached the door when the black man's hand grabbed his arm.

 "Not so fast, friend," the easy voice said.

 Lance turned, the cop's hand still on his arm, tightening, the smell of spearmint gum spreading with the black man's smile.

 "Huh?" Lance mumbled. "You got a problem?"

 "I would say you do," the cop said, flashing identification. Lance caught the name "Demetre" before it vanished again, and the sense of unease in the room as the truckers stared. "Would you mind stepping outside with me for a moment?"

 If Lance had a choice, it illuded him, the firm grip propelled him through the door and down the steps, back into the heated parking lot. A sea of police cars filled the spaces between the trucks, and around each, the tan uniforms of city cops bobbed up and down. Suited men turned at Lance's appearance, bearing all the markings of undercover cops. Dan and Sarah stood to one side, police around them, hands already cuffed.

 "Well, well," a sweating pudgy man in a too-tight tie and collar said as Lance stumbled down the steps. "Thought you'd get away from us, eh?" He flashed an FBI card in Lance's face.

 "I don't know what you're talking about," Lance said, glancing at Dan who shook his head subtly from side to side, telling him to say nothing.

 Uniformed cops shoved Lance against a car and cuffed him, too. But Demetre turned him around, overwhelming him with mint as he pressed his face close. "Where are your friends?" the black cop asked.

 "Friends?" Lance asked, as another cop patted him down.

 "Don't get wise, punk," Demetre growled. "You're in enough trouble as it is."

 The cop searching him produced the bowie knife from his belt. Lance stared at it, remembering how he had clung to it the night before during the night. As protection against the Denver crowd? Or to silence the lovemaking in the back? He wasn't sure. But it scared him.

 "My friends are there," Lance said, tilting his head towards Dan and Sarah.

 "Not them," Demetre snapped. "The others."

 The cop seemed to know a lot.

 "There are no others," Lance said. "We picked up some hitch hikers along the road. But they're long gone. Now it's just the three of us."

 Demetre looked dissatisfied and lifted his hand in some sort of signal. Uniformed city cops descended upon the van like an invading army, plucking open all its doors at once. They cast out its contents, packs, boxes, bags, blankets till everything lay on the gravel. Then, one by one, they searched each item, tearing open sealed packages and dumping their contents. Tampax. Cigarette tobacco. Cotton balls. Soap.

 It became increasingly evident; they'd not found what they'd expected. Officers grabbed Lance and the others and shoved them into separate cars for the eventual ritual of interrogation. Dan again signaled for Lance to remain silent. But he had been well taught from other hassles.

 Don't give the cops anything they can hang you on.

 Demetre looked on, his expression growing darker as the search came to an end. He seemed angry and leaned against the car, his gaze following each piece of baggage from the van. Initial enthusiasm had died in the searches. No drugs. No weapons. Just clothing, sleeping gear and the odd memorabilia Sarah had collected along the way: souvenir ashtrays or potholders to say where she'd been.

 "Nothing," the pudgy FBI man spat, his voice sharp and angry, drifting through the crack of window left open near Lance. "You said we'd find the shipment here, Demetre."

 "It should have been," Demetre mumbled.

 "That's twice Buckingham's fooled you into moving too soon," the FBI man said, drawing a cigar from his inner jacket pocket.

 "Or too late. We’re dancing on egg shells with him. We have to catch him with his hands on the drugs or it's no good."

 "And he's not one of this crowd?"

 "Not likely," Demetre said, looking away from the pile and towards the desert, as if expecting to see someone there. "If one of them was Buckingham, we'd have found the drugs here. Damn it!" His hand crashed down on the hood of the car. "If I'd moved sooner this time, Gil would still be alive..."

 Lance stiffened and leaned closer to the window to catch the now-lowered voice."

 "What are you worried about a drug dealer for?" the FBI man said, puffing on the cigar. "He got what he deserved."

 "Maybe," Demetre admitted. "But he was also a man with values and helped as many in this town as he hurt."

 "A regular Robinhood, eh?" the FBI man laughed through a cloud of smoke.

 "No, but he had a conscience. Whoever replaces him will hardly have his discretion."

 "You're talking nonsense," the FBI man said and spat out bits of tobacco onto the gravel.

 "We'll see," Demetre said, looking back at the pudgy man's face. "But this town's going to get a lot more dangerous with Gil gone. Mark my words."

 "Buckingham?"

 "Maybe. If we don't catch him. Or some other petty little drug lord who'll pop up with new connections..."

 A uniformed cop interrupted Demetre and handed him an envelope. Demetre nodded. The cop moved off. The FBI man removed the cigar from his mouth.

 "Well?"

 "Nothing except a few seeds in the ashtray."

 "We can book them on those," the FBI man said.

 "But we wouldn't make it stick in court."

 "So, what do you want to do? Let them go?  There are outstanding warrants on two of them..."

 Lance heard the jail door slam in his head. Warrants? For him and Dan? It meant his phony ID had failed.

 "Larceny and non-payment of alimony," Demetre grumbled. "It hardly seems worth all this."

 "Just the same it’s a collar."

 "But they could be of more use to us free."

 "You're crazy."

 "I'm practical. It isn't as if we couldn't find them again. We know where they're going after all."

 The FBI man looked furious, glaring at Demetre before tossing his cigar away. "All right. Do what you want. You're the big man out here."

 

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