THE MOJAVE DESERT AT 3 A.M. WAS NOTHING BUT BLACKNESS AND abandoned history. Hollowed-out mining towns; darkened mountain ranges and dormant volcanos; skeletons of World War II military installments. The Mojave used to prepare the troops for duty in North Africa, airfields carved into the desert floor, left behind like petroglyphs, old bases marked by obelisks in the dirt and faded bronze plaques.
Baghdad. Fenner. Cádiz. Siberia.
The Dead Mountains.
The Devil’s Playground.
The Amboy Crater.
The Camp Ibis memorial.
Now, in the air between the marine base in Twentynine Palms and Fort Irwin, flying low: An Apache helicopter. An F-16. A bomber. Making training routes in the darkness, lights off, and then suddenly above you. The Mojave lousy with known and unknown training bases, still, preparing to attack this or any desert. Could be Afghanistan tonight. Could be Iraq. Could be Kuwait.
And then: nothing. Just a two-lane road off Highway 40, cutting through the desert, no lights forward, no lights coming from behind, David thinking, knowing, understanding: You could die out here. Look at this place. And then a sign, to spur hope: Salt Lake City 599 miles. Yuma 280 miles. Los Angeles 192 miles.
“You come out here every time?” David asked. They’d been driving for three hours, since Ruben picked David up in the parking lot of the Bagel Café, the safest spot he figured he could leave his Range Rover and Matthew’s belongings in case he didn’t make it back. David spent most of those hours thinking about what he learned from Matthew’s notebooks, but also doing nothing but staring into the vast nothingness. If he was a man prone to metaphor, he’d really be fucked.
“Mr. Savone says it’s been used by the families forever,” Ruben said.
“Ever bring anyone with you?”
“Depends who I’m meeting. If it’s someone I know, I might bring my kid to keep me company.”
“What about Miguel?”
“He’s not ready for it. I mean. He can handle himself. But he just got married, you know? He should get his life established first.”
“So he’s got something to lose?”
“Less likely to fuck up,” Ruben said. He wasn’t wrong. Ruben hit the brights. “Not much longer now. You see a boulder painted pink, that’s where we turn.”
They were in the hearse SUV, a retrofitted black Ford Expedition that could hold up to six caskets, and in the back were three bodies. David did some research online, figured out that the fat guy with Aquafreddo across his back was probably Lester Aquafreddo, judging from the photos in the Los Angeles Times and NY Post, when he was younger, skinnier, and had all of his head. He’d been out in LA for years, first as a porn producer, which just meant he was washing money through X-rated films, then as a gaming consultant for Native American tribes opening up bingo parlors, which just meant he was washing money through old lady’s bingo cards, then as general manager of a night club in Palm Springs called Freddo’s, which just meant he was washing money through his fucking bar, and then, finally, as a consultant, again, to a tribe in Palm Springs going full Vegas-style gaming. Whenever he appeared in the paper, he was always called a “reputed Gambino crime figure,” but he never did any time and never sued anyone for defamation, which meant he didn’t want to enter discovery on that shit.
The other two, the Zanguccis, were local muscle to Palm Springs. Chaz and Kiki. Fraternal twins. They ran a gym called PowerHaus that seemed mostly to be a front for selling steroids, at least according to the arrest blotter in the Desert Sun. David doubted they were even made, despite their tattoos. Probably did whatever Aquafreddo wanted, but who knows. Maybe all three were keeping omertà in the trunk of a tricked-out Ford Expedition.
If David was right, Peaches killed them as part of the Native Mob’s expansion into California, but also because he wanted to learn about The Family’s network for laundering bodies, in light of what happened to Ronnie’s wife and kids. David had no idea if Peaches would be at the drop-off tonight, but he had to hope. Because he had a little something for him.
Plus, the only reason Jennifer and William would seek protection was if Peaches threatened them. He knew that. No one in The Family would have ever stepped to Jennifer, even with Ronnie out of commission. They knew she could have them all arrested with one phone call. They knew if Sal ever came home, they’d be met with prejudice. If they were smart—which was a big if—they’d figure out that Peaches set up Matthew Drew to take Ronnie out by getting him hired to run security for the Chuyalla casino, where Peaches knew Matthew would absolutely get a chance to take the motherfucker down.
Ever since this Peaches showed up, shit turned upside down. David admired the efficiency with which Peaches worked. Game respects game and all that, but that didn’t mean David wouldn’t put two in the back of his head and another two in the front.
“We get there,” Ruben said, “let me do the talking.”
“It’s your show,” David said. “I’m just here to watch.”
“You say that,” Ruben said, “but you’re the one holding two guns and a knife.”
“You don’t got a gun?”
“That’s not the point,” Ruben said.
Up ahead, the headlights caught a glimmer of pink in the darkness. The road bent into the desert, and the pink was gone. “We’re close,” Ruben said, and twenty seconds later, the boulder came into full view, on the left-hand side of the road. Ruben turned across the two-lane road into the desert, the road paved by use but not anything else.
“The fuck is this place?” David asked.
“Ragtown,” Ruben said. “Used to be a mining village. Southern Transcon ran through here back in the day.”
“How the fuck do you know that?”
“I listened in school,” Ruben said. He ran his finger in a circle. “Everything out here, all the mountains, was gold and silver and bronze. Used to camp here in the winter with Boy Scouts. We’d go exploring all the old mines. It was cool. Brought my sister to look for gems, found some, too. Plus arrowheads and seashells and shit.”
“You were some kind of Boy Scout?”
“Homie,” Ruben said, “you don’t know shit about me but what you see with your eyes.”
The dirt road took a dip down and they were moving across what David thought might be a dry riverbed. David peered out the side mirror and the road was gone, they were in total blackness, and yet Ruben knew exactly where they were going. They swept south and then climbed before coming to a plateau, David making out structures in the distance. An old barn? A couple lean-tos? And then, parked among the Joshua trees, parking lights on, was another black hearse SUV, this one smaller.
“We work with another funeral home?” David asked.
“Naw,” Ruben said. “We did so much business with the Native Mob, we gave it to them. As a thank-you. Less chance any of us get caught.”
Made sense. No one ever pulled over a hearse for speeding, or any other reason. You could dump two thousand pounds of cocaine in a coffin and a cop would need a court order to open it. The only better cover was driving a cop car or fire truck.
“This what you were expecting?” David asked.
“Yeah, all kosher,” Ruben said.
David couldn’t tell how many people were in the other hearse. They were supposed to be dropping off one body, but they didn’t know three were being returned in the process, which David assumed might be a problem. There could be fifteen guys in the back of that hearse, each with an AK-47, all with an opinion on the situation, in which case this might be David’s last stand, though Ruben seemed calm. David took down his window. The air was cool, maybe 60 degrees, the high-desert climate cooler than Las Vegas, which is why David had changed into a black hoodie and jeans. He smelled damp creosote, exhaust, and weed smoke.