by Thierry Le Noque

CHAPTER ONE

The sun is in my eyes and I’m going to die.

Ray Philips tried to care. It was only one weepy eye, anyway. The other had swollen shut. He was watching the sun set, face pressed against the hard scrabble at the side of a narrow road on the dry yellow flank of the Mayacamas range.

Soon the amorphous orange orb would be obscured by the rear wheel of the Escalade parked almost on top of his head. The oily stench of highway heated steel-belted tread was repelling yet strangely familiar, like the odor of asphalt, revved engines, and burning rubber on hot August nights.

They were waiting for somebody, two pairs of high-heeled western boots and the one pair of expensive loafers. One pair of boots belonged to the young Mexican male with a shaved head and sparse goatee. He was seated, his back to the wheel above Ray, holding the side of his face with one hand and punching Ray in the ribs with the other.

The somebody they were waiting for was preceded by the crackling crunch of the wheels of an approaching vehicle on gravel. It came to a stop behind the SUV. One car door and another closed with the solid thunk of a luxury sedan. And footsteps approached. “What the fuck happened to you cholas?”

“This guy’s some kind of kung fu martial arts motherfucker.” Boots got to his feet and leaned a hand on the side of the SUV. “But we took him down, fucking stomped him good. Son of a bitch,” and let drop a gob of blood speckled spit.

“I want to get a look at the guy who could kick all your asses. He better be one bad fucking hombre or I’m going to kill all you fucking pussies.”

Hands grabbed Ray’s ankles, dragging him out from under the SUV. The toe of a boot wedged itself under his right side and flipped him onto his back. His legs didn’t want to follow and twisted under him shooting a bolt up his spine. He reopened his eye to focus on a dark face close to his, teeth bared, eyes bugging.

“So this is the motherfucker who’s been stealing from me? You think you can get away with that shit, motherfucker? You think so, huh? Nobody steals from me! You understand! Now you’re going to fucking tell me where you’ve got my product, and my fucking money!”  Narrowed lips drawn across the bared gold-capped teeth flecked with spittle.

Sultry, feminine, a voice said, “I know this guy.”

“You know this motherfucker?”

Ray turned his head, focusing on a slender oval framed by long dark hair. “This is the guy I told you about, at the county jail.”

“This guy?”

“Yeah. That’s him, I’m sure.”

Mean face withdrew to become an oblong blur on top of a shadowy narrow frame. “Alright, he gets a bye. This one time. I’m not done with him.” Feet scuffled off. Car doors slammed shut, one after another. Wheels crackled, crushing clumps of dirt to dust in their leaving.

Ray watched the Escalade make a wide turn further up the road and head back toward him. He could have said a prayer but he didn’t remember any. The SUV slowed as it passed and the driver spat red out the window at him. They were going to have to do better than that.

CHAPTER 2

Ten days earlier, Ray Philips pocketed his pay as a bouncer checking IDs at the door of La Bête Noir, also known as ‘The Beast,’ the college bar on Mendocino Avenue. He swung his suitcoat over his shoulder and walked out into the cool early morning in his shirt sleeves. A tall man in his late twenties, broad shoulders of an athlete, square jawed, sleepy amber green eyes beneath thick eyebrows and curly black hair just short of shaggy, he had concluded that a suit was a kind of uniform. Bar patrons, especially the young and callow, paid deference to the authority of the uniform which made his job matching faces and ages with what was represented on little plastic cards much easier. Of course there were times when it had the opposite effect. Then it got ugly.

He fit the key in the door of his battered Civic hatchback in the parking lot behind the bar, giving a thought to Cissy, probably waiting up for him with a bottle of white wine and a see-thru something from a specialty boutique. She’d said she had something important to tell him as he was heading out the door for work the previous evening. Sex was at the top of his list of important things.

He was surprised by the man in the faded red hooded sweatshirt standing on the other side of the car. The man had stepped out of the shadows. “Hey, Ray.”

“Colin, what are you doing here?”

“I need a favor.”

“What happened to your face?”

Colin’s hand went up to the purple swelling on his forehead. “Uh, bumped a guard rail coming down Calistoga. Kinda totaled the front end of my truck. That’s why I’m here. I got a fishing party to take out in the morning. I need a lift out to the marina.”

“Those scratches look pretty bad. Get them bumping the rail, too?”

“Me and Mandy. . . you know. She got some claws.”

“The makeup sex must be great. You two are always fighting.”

“That’s history man. She can go fuck herself for all I care.”

“I’ve heard that song before. You should set it to music.”

“How about it? This gig is gonna help pay the groceries, and get the mortgage company off my ass.”

Ray knew bullshit when he heard it. He shrugged, “Yeah, ok, get in.”

Ray saw it coming from far off, closing fast. It powered past them in the opposite direction, unmarked, strobes flashing in the grill, gang unit eating up the pavement, heading for the 101. After it passed, Highway 12 was empty, as deserted as on the day after the apocalypse, practically all the way to Sebastopol.

“I called your phone. You didn’t pick-up.”

“I keep it turned off. Battery’s not holding a charge.”

“You’re still packing that old flip thing? That is so yesterday. Man, get a real phone.”  Colin held up his, luminescent oblong screen blue. “What you got is a paper weight.”

“Takes money, money I don’t have.”

“Say the word, Ray, I can cut you some action. You wouldn’t have to do much.”

“Colin, I don’t want to hear about your fucking action. I told you that.”

Colin shrugged and turned his head to stare at the vague silhouettes passing backlit by orange streetlight glow.

The first time Ray met Colin Knox was in first grade on the playground at St Rose first week of school. Colin was bumping chests with an older kid, second or third grader. The bigger kid had his hands balled into fists and his face looked ready to explode. Colin was oblivious, jaw working, mouth spitting out words. The ruckus had attracted a few others, mainly friends of the bigger kid. Ray didn’t like the odds his fellow first grader was facing. He stepped between them just as the big kid was about to give Colin a shove. Ray got the shove instead. He shoved back.

As if she had suddenly emerged out of the blacktop, Sister Constance Marie caught him by the tiny hairs at the back of his neck and marched him straight to Mother Superior. Ray got detention for the rest of the week. Colin and Ray were inseparable from then on, and Ray was adopted into the Knox clan.

Colin’s dad was a bantam. His name was Howard but the way he said it, it sounded like ‘hard.’ He wore a big gold ring on his right pinky and had a gold cap on his left eye tooth. He was the service manager at Zumwalt, the dealership on Santa Rosa Avenue. There was always a brand new Chrysler in their driveway.

Bridgette was Colin’s mother though everyone called her Gidget and she didn’t seem to mind. She was the most beautiful woman Ray had ever seen off the TV or movie screen. She loved to laugh and act up, joke, have a drink. She used to say that they were distant relatives of the people who owned the Fort. And she’d add, “Very distant.” It was years before Ray actually got the joke. She was fond of Ray, a second mother to him considering the amount of time he spent at Colin’s, and the amount of time his own mother, Kay, spent avoiding him to be with her latest boyfriend.

The Knox’s had a timeshare on the coast overlooking the Russian River, and every summer for two weeks in July, Colin’s mother invited him along. To think back to that time, for Ray, those were idyllic days. Colin and he were blood brothers, pirates of the cove, and the tiny island that hugged the south shore of the estuary where they’d built a makeshift bulwark was their lair, their treasured isle.

“This is crap, I might as well be listening to static.”

“Don’t fuck with the presets.”

“Got any real tunes?”  Colin opened the glove box to wads of oily paper towel and jumper cables.

“Look in the back. Cissy picked some up at a garage sale. I don’t know what they are.”

Colin unbuckled and lifted himself from the seat to grapple with the half-crate and bring it forward to his lap.

“Put your seatbelt back on.”

“Jesus, what’s this, a fucking school bus?”

“I can’t afford a ticket.”

“You think you’re gonna get pulled over?”

“Always a possibility. Cops, this time of the morning, are bored and need something to keep them awake. A traffic stop gets the adrenaline pumping.”

“You know this for a fact? Why, because you went to cop school?”  Colin switched on the dome light to pick through the CD’s.

“Shit, turn that off! I can’t see. . .shit!”  Ray yanked the steering wheel hard right. The left rear bumped over something big.

Colin glanced over his shoulder as Ray switched off the dome light. “What the fuck was that?”

Ray peered into the rearview. “I dunno, debris, lumber of some kind. Shit!”

Colin laughed. “Chill, man, you drove over a piece of wood, big fucking deal. Tell you what.”  He reached into his sweatshirt and produced a fatty. “We’ll fire this puppy up and everything gonna be fine.”

Ray nodded. “Yeah, but wait till we get through Sebastopol. The cops there are real pricks. If we get stopped I don’t want my car smelling like Bong Central Station.”

“You are one paranoid motherfucker, you know that?”  Colin turned his attention back to the box on his lap. “There better be some head banging brain damaging obliteration in this collection of garbage.”

The second time Ray came to Colin’s rescue was at Los Guilicos Youth Detention Center. Colin was in a showdown with a trio of very large thugs and was about to have his ass handed to him, or worse. By then Ray was well on to being large himself, nearly six foot, tall for a ninth grader. Colin was still a runt, a runt who tried to make up for his size with his big mouth.

They’d lost touch around sixth grade. By the start of high school, they barely saw each other. Colin attending elite Newman and Ray struggling to keep from being booted out of Montgomery.

And Ray was running with a bad crew. In particular, Jaime Jimenez who went by the name of Jimmy Jim and an Asian kid known only as Huk. Ray had a rep, too. Tough white punk prone to murderous rage.

One Friday night while they were goofing around on their way to hang out in Courthouse Square, they ran into a gang of older boys near Fremont Park. Hand signs were flashed, challenges made. The older teens weren’t going to let them pass until they claimed. No one saw it coming. Huk stabbed the one talking trash in the neck. By the spurt of blood, he’d hit an artery. The cops picked them up beating feet down Talbot. That same night Colin had been picked up in a drug sweep. It was a short reunion. Ray had taken two of the thugs down before the staff broke it up.

Ray was labeled an at-risk juvenile and released on the condition that he attend counseling. Kay was at the end of her rope with him. Things needed to change or Ray would end up in a group home.

His counselor, a young guy with a big red beard and bad breath, was the one who suggested the way out. There was a martial arts studio a couple of blocks from Ray’s apartment. Maybe he should give it a shot, channel his aggressions. Ray had passed by the place dozens of times. It was decidedly uncool. A bunch of little kids in white pajamas thinking they were Bruce Lee. Ray reluctantly accompanied Barry, the counselor, to a tournament at the dojo. That was all it took.

“Bandit at six o’clock.”

Ray glanced at the flashing lights in his rearview mirror. They were just about to leave the city limits.

“Ok, stay calm, they don’t have PC,” Colin blurted.

“Probably cause? Since when do cops need probable cause?”

Colin pulled the hoodie over his head and leaned against the window. “I’ve been drinking and you’re taking me home.”

Ray navigated to the shoulder of the road, turned the engine off and placed his hands at the top of the steering wheel. He watched the officer exit his vehicle and walk cautiously toward them. “And where do you live?”

“Uh, I dunno, you’ll think of something. I’m sleeping. Don’t wake me.”  Colin feigned the deep breathing of sleep.

The cop stood at the window and waited for Ray to roll it down. His flashlight scanned the interior. “License and registration, please.”

Ray lifted the registration from the visor and handed it over with his license. “What seems to be the problem, officer?”

The cop had his citation book out. “Left rear taillight.”

“Really? The taillight’s not working? Mind if I see for myself? It was just in for a service. They should have caught that.”

The officer stepped back from the door and to the rear of the Civic, citation book in his left, his right hand to his hip. “Please stay in the car, sir,” glancing down at the license .

Ray made sure his were in plain sight. “Well, you are right.”  He thumped the rear panel and the light blinked on. “Loose wire. But thanks for catching that, Warren.”

Ray took the hard look. “Oh, fuck. Philips! Why didn’t you say something?”  The policeman double-checked the driver’s license in his hand. “I ain’t seen you since. . . .”

“The academy?”

“Yeah, right. It’s been a while. What you been doing with yourself?”

Ray shrugged. “This and that. Teaching martial arts at the Runway Club.”

“You’re still doing that, huh? What’re you now, a black belt?”

“Something like that. Doing some part-time at Morgan Josephson. Gonna test for my State investigator’s license.”

“No shit, you’re working for MoJo? My old man did some work for them, insurance stuff, you know, after he retired.”

“So I heard. Your dad was a good cop. How’s he doing these days?”

Warren shook his head. “Aw, we got him in a nursing home. He don’t even know who he is.”

“Sorry to hear that. How about you, how do you like working for Sebastopol?”

“It’s alright. If you don’t mind being a security guard for a bunch of over-the-hill hippies.”

Ray laughed. “That’s a good one, Warren. Mind if I use it?”

“Sure, I don’t care. One of our dispatchers came up with it.”

On cue the radio rasped. “Edward Boy 5, ready to copy your 10-28?”

Warren answered on his portable. “Disregard 10-28. Code 4 on the 11-95.”  Then to Ray, handing back his papers, “I gotta ask you about your vanity plate. What the hell does that mean, GMTIOO?

“Gumshoe. My girlfriend got it for me.”

“No shit, that says gumshoe?” Warren stared at the plate, grinning. “I get it, gumshoe, PI, private investigator.” And turning to leave, “Get that light fixed, ok?”

Ray waited until the patrol car made the U-turn before he got back behind the wheel.

“Who the fuck was that?”

“Warren Kroner.”

“Herb Kroner’s kid? Shit, they let anybody have a gun and a badge. My old man said Herb was one of the dirtiest cops in the whole county.”

“Yeah, and now he’s blowing spit bubbles and pissing in diapers. Some kind of justice.”

“Fucking cops. You heard how they shot that kid, didn’t you? Just fucking shot him. What’d he do, looked at them cross-eyed?”

“You don’t have to tell me. I blame the cowboys who teach the Lethal Force module. It’s shoot first, ask questions later. The way they see it, you shoot somebody on duty, nobody can touch you.”

“Fucking trigger happy cocksuckers.”

Ray steered back onto the roadway. Pungent smoke filled the interior and he cracked a window to let the night air blow through. He took a deep toke and then coughed his lungs out all over the speedometer. His eyes watered, his nose tickled, and the dome of his skull detached itself and floated above his head.

Colin laughed, hacking up a billow, and slapped the dash to the beat of a head-banging anthem. “Just like old times, homes!”

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Next Time: Fish & Tequila