I went on and on about my brother, Jack — a bright and troubled man — who travels with Janine as an assistant, trainer, companion, and fellow surfer after his grueling years as a SEAL.
Tola recounted brother Dalton’s run for high school junior class president, his defeat and his bitter protest of rigged ballot counting. He’d made such a big issue of it with a local paper that the principal had duly questioned the election committee students and found that one of them had in fact counted her own vote for Dalton’s opponent twice because Dalton had passed over her in favor of Natalie Galland of Ramona. One vote being enough to change the outcome. She’d had no idea it was that close. Dalton had happily taken office. And, not long after, taken his baseball bat to older brother Kirby, staking his claim to Natalie once and for all.
Then the stories tailed into silence and I listened to the heartbeat of my home and the woman in my bed. Moon and a breeze through the window screen. Thought nothing about anything. Amazing grace.
We made strong love and in the afterglow Tola’s phone buzzed. She listened and hung up.
“I don’t need you on this,” she said.
“I’ll help.”
“I don’t need it.”
She carried her overnight back into the bathroom and emerged shortly in a trim black business suit, a tastefully low-cut black blouse, low-heeled leather boots, the elegant chartreuse satin duster I’d seen that night in Sacramento draped over one shoulder. Hair in a ponytail, tight and out of her way.
We walked to her Jeep in heavy silence.
“Sure you don’t need me?” I asked.
“I got this one.”
She kissed me hard, then tossed the duster onto the front seat, climbed in and rolled down the window.
“Roland, I love you like a twister loves a trailer. But don’t follow me and don’t wait up.”
“I’ll leave a light on for you.”
Down the drive. I waited a moment, then got into sweet, battle-scarred Vivian and followed.
Thirty-Eight
Tola’s red Jeep was easy enough to track with the blacked-out taillight. South down the interstate. I didn’t really care if she saw me or not. I was bent to do what I could for her. The PI Roland — knight-errant, by love inspired, the tools of his trade within easy reach. Steering down Interstate 15 south in the service of his queen.
To the 8 East and into the mountains of Cleveland National Forest, down the long grade past Virgil Strait’s rocky stronghold and on into Imperial Valley. Wind and blowing sand and big rigs bound for Arizona. Off at Bonds Corner, then into Buena Vista.
She parked on the U.S. side, on a potholed boulevard in the restaurant and bar district. Turned off her lights and called me.
“I knew you’d pull this,” she said.
“You didn’t fight it very hard.”
“I made a specific request.”
“I don’t work for you,” I said. “What is this?”
“Calderon told New Generation about my appointment at the Buena Vista Credit Union. Providing an opportunity on Palomar in my absence and the skeleton crew at the grow. My own trusting stupidity failed to foresee and prevent what happened. His unhappy notary is an acquaintance of mine.”
“They should have taken us out at the credit union,” I said. “Or the Hotel Casa Grande. Easy target, easy money.”
“Kirby meant nothing to them except a warning to me,” she said. “New Generation wants everything I’ve worked for. My money, my plants, my retail, my savings and loan. My mail-order start-up and my California regulator you told me not to trust and by the way you were right. That craggy sonofabitch I trusted is FBI. The cleanest way for New Generation to get all that is to get me on their payroll. I’ve turned down some awfully lucrative advances. Leading to what happened. But I’m coming to the table tonight at the Casa Grande at their invitation. We’re going to clear it all up.”
“It can’t all be cleared up tonight, Tola.”
“Some of it, then,” she said.
A flat tone to her voice. I wondered what part she was hoping to clear up and what she’d let slide.
“I accept your offer of help tonight, Roland. Be a calming influence. If things don’t go well, we’ve got a way out, east of town. Ride with us or you might never get back across.”
Virgil Strait picked us up in an old Econoline commercial van, once white, few windows but lots of rust. Plenty of Bondo above the taillights but a capable growl at idle.
Virgil peered at me through faint interior lamplight, a take-it-or-leave-it expression on his tortoise face. A passenger beside him, more riders in the bench seats behind. “Make room,” he said.
The slam of the door, then grumbles, grunts, and names. I was placed in the middle bench seat between Tola and one of her Strait Shooters from the Nectar Barn, Gar. Behind me sat Marcus from the Palomar grow, flanked by two other large, stone-faced braves, Erik and Eli. Up front in the passenger seat sat Archie Strait — father of Tola, Kirby, and Dalton — the once proud patriarch seriously injured in contest with his eldest son. The face of a hundred billboards. Dressed in a yoked black cowboy jacket over a white shirt, and his signature red bandana in place. Groomed and alert looking but motionless as a manikin, just as when I’d met him in Virgil’s eyrie.
I noted the others’ business-meeting attire: suits or sports coats. The van smelled of hair product and nerves.
“You should have told me about the dress code,” I said.
“You just shut up and do what Tola tells you to,” said Virgil.
“Sir, yes sir.”
“Dumb jarhead,” he said.
“Dumb Okie,” I said.
“Men,” said Tola. “Please, let’s bow our heads in prayer. This is our practice, Roland. We welcome your participation but it’s not required.”
I looked at the floor carpet, worn down to metal between my feet. And listened to Tola’s low smooth voice in prayer over the idling engine.
“God in heaven we ask your blessing upon us. We believe in you but we don’t claim to know who you are or what you want. We know that you might not like us very much. Which makes us humble before you, heads bowed in hope that you will protect us, but fearful that you might choose not to. We deserve nothing. But we desire the best of your earth and want your permission to take it. In return we will be kind to the poor, and brave against the wicked. And we will honor your name, God, our silent and invisible partner, forever. Amen.”
An easy crossing south at the border. The young U.S. agent studied Virgil and his famous passenger without a trace of recognition, focused on Virgil’s passport, looked up, said nothing and waved us through.
The Mexican border guard did likewise, but gave Archie a smile as the crossarm lifted. “Welcome to Mexico,” he said.
Virgil handed him what looked like an eight-by-ten picture of his son, the same image that had graced the highway billboards for all the years.
“Here,” said Virgil. “He wants you to have this. From back when he could still sign his name.”
The Hotel Casa Grande stood on Avenida Revolución, a building with one hundred and fifty years of history. Missions and ranchos, wealth and squalor, Indians and Anglos, revolution and reform. Pancho Villa slept here. No mention of General Pershing. The plastered adobe was two stories, built around the interior courtyard where Tola and I had eaten. All of it carefully maintained and charmingly lit.
Virgil parked the heavy-laden van opposite the hotel and a block away, aimed back in the direction from which we had come. The engine dieseled and died.