Art Dominguez got as close as he could to the crime scene. A strip mall psych ward downtown. Cops and EMT’s bounced off each other. Civilians stood and watched from behind the tape. Chief Burke, thirty pounds heavier, greying at his mustache and temples, came at him like a goddamn bull. Art wondered how it had only been five years. The orange glow of dusk shimmered against the pollution haze of the central valley air. It would be dark soon.
“It’s a shit show in there,” Burke said. “Where the fuck were you?” He moved around to the bed of the truck. Art followed.
“You have some information on the kid who took her?” Art said, ignoring the brash impatience.
“Heath Walker. Twenty-two-year-old mixed-race male. Came in with a police badge and signed release papers.”
“Where did he get those?”
“Only place he could have. My house. I sent a plainclothes over to check it out. Don’t have a full inventory yet.”
“Jesus, and what happened here?”
“Assaulted a receptionist. Shot an orderly. Both in critical condition across the street.” He nodded to the main hospital.
Art smiled. He missed working these types of cases, the vigilante nature—hunting humans—the apex of apex predators, the whole time knowing that you get to kill someone who deserves to die. “Got a file on him?”
Burke handed Art a file folder, pages sticking out from the corners. “He’s had a couple of possession charges. Fighting. Drunk and disorderly. Nothing major.”
“Until now—where’s his family?” Art said. He moved the mugshot clipped to the file into the dim overhead lamplight.
“Real parents deceased. Some bank job in the sixties went sideways. He was raised by evangelicals in Woodlake.”
“They still in Woodlake, the Evangelicals?”
“Yep. Plainclothes paid them a visit. Charity’s not there.” Burke turned his head and spit. A stream of black saliva splashed near the back wheel of Arts truck. “They do have a son, Heath’s adoptive brother, Avery. Lives in some hippy commune up in Santa Cruz. Address is in the file.”
“What are they driving?”
“Black Crown Vic. License plate WDLKHI.”
“Anything else?”
“He stole my off-duty badge and gun.”
“I guessed as much. They won’t see me coming.”
“Here’s fifteen hundred upfront. I’ll get the rest when you come back, with Charity.”
“What if they jump the border?”
Burke paused and looked over his shoulder at the crime scene. His body tensed. “I don’t give a fuck if they go to Antarctica. Follow them and finish the job.”
“It’s illegal to bounty hunt in Mexico.”
“Don’t get caught. And more importantly, don’t come back without her, because you won’t have a fucking life to come back to.” Burke was at least six-foot-two and nearly a head taller than Art, and when he leaned forward, his eyes bulged slightly. He seemed unhinged.
Art started to turn, then stopped. “One more question. Why not just put out an APB on the Crown Vic?”
“Same reason we won’t take your half-dead bounties. If there’s an accident once the kid’s inside, and there’s going to be an accident, it comes down on me.” A groan from the back of Art’s truck stopped Burke. A blue tarp moved slightly. “What the fuck is that?”
“Reason I was late.”
Burke frowned. “Get rid of that sooner rather than later. I don’t want you getting put away in another fucking county.”
Art nodded. “I will. And I’ll bring your daughter back.”
“One more thing,” Burke said and stepped so close to Art that he could smell the Copenhagen on his breath. “The girl, Charity, she’s sick. Paranoid schizophrenia. That’s why she was in.”
“I’ll keep her restrained. I always do.”
“The reason I mention it is in case she starts jabbering on the way back,” Burke said. “Don’t listen to a goddamn word she says. It’s all delusions…voices and shit.” Something about his glower made Burke seem too invested, and it chilled Art.
“Understood,” Art said. He stepped into the truck, started it, and tipped his hat. Burke nodded, spat again, then disappeared back into the crime scene. A familiar uneasiness about Burke returned. But Burke always paid, and this was about money. His livelihood rested on this rundown. Art would find them, kill the kid, and bring the girl back—Burke always paid, and Art always delivered.
He put the truck in drive, pulled out of the parking lot, and headed onto the highway, westbound toward Santa Cruz.
Art hit the gas on 198 West, same direction as Heath and Charity. If his experience had taught him anything, it was that people were predictable. The first place they’d hit would be
Santa Cruz—the brother’s commune. The only issue Art saw was places like that had a lot of bystanders. He needed the element of surprise, and that was going to be difficult with a bunch of hippies ambling around all night. So, he’d locate it, case it, and time it just right—timing was everything and Art relied on his gut for that. It’s why Armando was in the back of his truck under a blue tarp sucking oxygen through a broken jaw. Art had a hunch, and sure enough, the bastard had gotten rough with Art’s ex, Stacey, and even though Art hurt people for a living, nobody touched the mother of his only child. Something had to be done.
Art passed Acres Road exit when Armando woke up, started thumping in the truck bed. Maybe the dumb shit would stand up, fall onto the 198 and get pinballed into a ditch. But that’d be messy. The thumping got louder. Art might have heard a scream for help.
Art turned north up the 99, took the Goshen exit toward some wide-open farms on the outskirts of town. He headed due east—passed rows of roll-up industrial storage that operated during the day. They were all closed up this time of night, usually. A half-mile later, he crossed the bridge for the Friant-Kern Canal and turned down a dirt frontage road that followed a cement-sided canal. He stopped when he got to a valve interchange, fifty feet upriver. Backed the bed of his truck flush with the cement bank, killed the engine, pulled a Glock .43 from his ankle holster and wedged it into his belt-line. Stepping out, he lowered the gate and threw the tarp into the water where it floated like a giant, blue leaf over the slow-moving surface.
Like an insect under an overturned rock, Armando squirmed and tried to catch his footing to stand, grunting through his fractured jaw. His eyes widened when he saw Art’s hand resting on the Glock in his waistline.
“You have two choices,” Art said. “One, you can promise me that you’ll leave town tonight and never come back. Never talk to Stacy again.” Art knew from the stubborn fuck’s expression he wasn’t liking that option. “The second is, you can swim for it. You make it across, you walk away.”
Armando groaned, caught his footing, and stood with his hands in the air. He nodded. Blood dripped down his neck onto his fitted dress shirt. He wobbled. The truck’s shocks moved with each step while he walked to the tongue of the bed. He looked at the slow-moving water then back at Art.
Art checked his Timex, pulled the Glock from his waist, and racked the slide. Round in the chamber, he said, “One way or another.”
Armando took a deep breath, shrugged, and jumped into the canal. Art watched him pull strong overhead strokes to the far side of the canal. The kid was in good shape, seemed to be a strong swimmer—mouth breathing through that busted jaw had to be a son-of-a-bitch though. He Grasped at the steep cement embankment on the other side. Too steep. Too slick. Armando slipped into the slow current, pulling him closer to the valve interchange.
He tried crawling up the cement again, flattened out against it. Held on long enough for Art to put a bead on him just in case, but that slow, unrelenting current pulled him back down. Art watched him spot the ladder just past the valve, stop swimming and let the current carry him toward false salvation. Art smiled.
In the glow of the truck’s tail lights, Art saw the blue tarp ahead of Armando get sucked beneath the surface. Armando panicked, yelped something muffled by the orchards around them. His arms flapped desperately just before slipping under. The surface grew calm like nothing had ever been there. No Armando. No Tarp. Just darkness and the silent flow of a cement river. Art imagined Armando down there, pressed against the steel grate, hydrodynamics forcing parts of his limbs through the small squares. If the body was ever recovered, it probably wouldn’t be worth an autopsy.
Art reached into the back seat of his truck and got out a spray bottle of bleach and water mix, a roll of paper towels, and did a quick sweep of the truck bed and interior. He pulled out a zippered dry-cleaning bag and unhooked a pressed, blue pair of trousers and button-down shirt logoed with patches that said, “City Utility Line Services.” It was official-looking, vague, and worked well on hunts in the past.
He drove back to the road, waiting to flip the lights on when he neared the freeway. Armando’s swim lesson had set him back another twenty minutes. No problem. Be better to get to the commune when all the hippies were asleep anyway. Just before dawn was usually the best time to catch somebody off guard. If all went well, he’d be home by midday tomorrow, and there would be two bodies seized against that steel grate.
by 
Latest posts by David M. Olsen (see all)
- Below the Silent Flow - August 12, 2019
0 Comments