Dying for the Highlife Read online

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  Mort concentrated on staying a few cars behind the Lamborghini. He suspected Jimmy might be headed to another hotel in town, but was more likely leaving Las Vegas. Mort hoped it was the latter—kidnapping Jimmy would be easier to do in a less crowded environment.

  Mort had studied the roadmaps and knew if Jimmy were leaving town he would most likely take Interstate 15 heading west. All other freeways were eastbound into the Mohave, with the nearest destinations being Salt Lake City or Phoenix. Interstate 15 led a hundred miles through the Western Mohave to the junction at Barstow. From there, one could turn south to the Los Angeles area, north on 395 toward Lake Tahoe, or continue west to Highway 5, toward San Jose or San Francisco.

  If Jimmy headed east, there was a good chance he’d stop to spend the night in a small town. If he was westbound, he might drive straight through to wherever in California he was headed. The Lamborghini drove to the far end of the strip, toward the airport, and like Mort predicted, took the entrance to 15 West. It was noon and the sun was white in the colorless sky. In a few minutes the glitter of Las Vegas faded and was replaced by the brown emptiness of the desert.

  The Toyota buzzed along at seventy-five, a couple hundred yards behind the Lamborghini. Mort ate a sandwich and drank a bottle of water as he drove, wondering if Jimmy would stop for lunch. Half an hour later they crossed the border into California. The road was nearly deserted, and Mort relaxed and turned on the radio. All was going as planned. But then, near the exit for Wheaton Springs, a black Corvette blasted by Mort at well over a hundred miles per hour.

  Within a few seconds, the Corvette passed the Lamborghini. Mort heard the roar of the twelve-cylinder Italian motor as Jimmy jammed open the throttles in pursuit. Exhaust spewed from its pipes, and the sleek orange car launched forward. In less than ten seconds, Mort could no longer see either car.

  Mort floored the Toyota, but the straight-four engine was built for economy, not performance. The speedometer flirted with ninety-five, but after a few miles the motor started to miss, and the temp gauge moved into the red zone. He backed down to eighty-five and turned off the AC, straining his eyes in hope that the Lamborghini had slowed and would become visible. The minutes ticked by with no sighting. Ten miles ahead lay the town of Baker, but after that there was nothing but highway for fifty miles to Barstow. If he didn’t see Jimmy by the time he reached the turnoff for Baker, Mort needed to decide whether to stop and look for him in Baker, or continue to Barstow.

  Neither choice was good. Suppose Jimmy didn’t stop and continued to Barstow? If so, and Mort stopped to look for him in Baker, Jimmy would end up too far ahead for Mort to ever catch him. But if Mort continued to Barstow, and Jimmy had in fact stopped in Baker for food or gas, it was doubtful Jimmy would stop in Barstow; he’d probably just stay on the freeway and keep going.

  Mort was pouring sweat in his disguise. It was at least a hundred outside, but every time he turned the air conditioning on, the engine started overheating. So he left it off and kept his speed at eighty-five. The black interior of the car was like an oven, even with the windows open.

  He reached the exit for Baker without seeing the Lamborghini. He drove past the exit and continued for forty minutes, until he reached a tiny city called Yermo, about five miles outside of Barstow. A truck stop near the off-ramp was built on a rise in the terrain. Mort found a parking spot with a clear view of the freeway, and waited. He removed the apparatus that gave him the appearance of a fat man and tossed it in the backseat, never taking his eyes from the freeway.

  Baker was a nothing town, a speck in the desert. Mort concluded that if Jimmy stopped there, it would be for food and gas only, which shouldn’t take long. He decided to wait for exactly thirteen minutes. If Jimmy didn’t come along by then, he would be well ahead, already to Barstow, where he would likely stop, for at least a short time.

  Mort walked to a bit of shade under a sign and watched for the Lamborghini. Then he moved back to the car and started the motor. The thirteen minutes passed. With a brief curse, Mort hit the gas and got back on the freeway.

  Mort now assumed Jimmy most likely drove straight through to Barstow. The driving time from Vegas to Barstow was over two hours. Jimmy would likely stop there, to use a restroom if nothing else.

  Mort drove into the center of Barstow and started checking the parking lots of every restaurant, bar, and gas station he came across, driving in an increasingly wide circle. It was still very hot, but the sun had fallen and rested low above the horizon and glared directly in Mort’s eyes. Once twilight came, the air cooled quickly. He continued searching until it was full dark.

  When Mort checked into a hotel, his jaw was sore, and he realized he’d been clenching his teeth for hours. He had not anticipated losing Jimmy Homestead, especially when Jimmy didn’t even know he was being followed.

  Why had he stopped and waited along the freeway for Jimmy? Why hadn’t he just driven straight to Barstow? The odds of finding Jimmy would have been better if he had. Instead, he waited and evidently gave Jimmy time to gas up and get food and leave for who knows where.

  It was a judgment call on his part, and a bad one, he now conceded. He had failed to react effectively to an unforeseen circumstance. He had not analyzed the situation correctly, and that was because he was not prepared. He should have predicted Jimmy might drive the Lamborghini at a high rate of speed across the open desert. That potential simply did not occur to him, and as a result, he had not only lost Jimmy, but also wasted time and a significant portion of his limited financial resources. It was poor planning on his part, and it was unforgivable. Now he needed to come up with a new plan, and he could not afford to fail again.

  Mort sat on the bed, his eyes squeezed shut, every joint in his body flexed like a compressed coil. In his head he heard a sound like a phonograph needle screeching across a record, and before he could stop himself, he leapt up and punched three holes in the wall, his fist pumping at lightning speed, his eyes dark and the skin on his face stretched so tight it felt like the seams would split.

  19

  Cody and Sheila had just sat down for lunch at a Mexican restaurant when I called.

  “Get your food to go. I’ll be there in five minutes,” I said. “Order me a burrito, too.”

  Ten minutes later we were heading west on 15 in my Ford rental. Cody sat up front, manning the GPS. “He’s at least ten miles ahead of us,” he said.

  “It doesn’t matter. We’ll know when and where he stops.”

  We settled in and drove in silence for a time, until we crossed the border into California. “What’s the plan when we find him, Sheila?” I said.

  “I’ll want to sit down and talk with him in a place where we can have a private conversation. A cocktail lounge would be perfect, as long as it’s not too small. I’ll want you and Cody to be visible to Jimmy while we’re talking. Not close enough to listen, but close enough so Jimmy can feel your presence.”

  “How do you plan on convincing him to share his money with you, if you don’t mind me asking?”

  “You let me handle that.”

  “Hey,” Cody said, staring at the GPS. “He’s farther ahead of us now. Looks like about twenty miles.”

  “He’s probably speeding. There’s nothing but open road ahead. Let’s hope he doesn’t kill himself.”

  “You won’t lose him, right?”

  “No way,” I said. “He’s got to stop sometime.”

  Sheila had a California map opened on her lap in the back seat. “The next town is Baker,” she said.

  But Jimmy didn’t stop in Baker. He continued west on 15, and continued to gain ground on us. We ate while we drove, maintaining an even seventy-five miles per hour, slicing through an empty, sun-blasted landscape that was colorless except for the faded brown of the earth’s floor.

  Half an hour later, the red arrow on the GPS stopped moving. The Lamborghini had stopped in Barstow. We were twenty-five miles away.

  “If we�
��re lucky, he stopped for lunch and a few drinks,” Cody said.

  But we were still ten miles outside of town when the arrow started moving again.

  “Damn him,” Sheila said.

  “He’s got onto 58 west now,” Cody said.

  The map crinkled behind me. “But that leads nowhere!” Sheila said.

  “It leads to 395. He’s heading to Tahoe.” I checked my gas gauge.

  “Oh, right,” Sheila said. “But there’s not much along the way—a couple little towns, Red Mountain, Atolia…”

  “Those are ghost towns—I don’t think anyone still lives there,” I said. “All right, here’s what we’ll do. We’ll make a quick stop in Barstow, fill the tank, then get back on the road. South Lake Tahoe is almost five hundred miles away. He’ll need gas again and probably food. There are more towns further north. Hopefully he’ll stop long enough for us to catch up.”

  We took the exit for Barstow, and I filled the tank while Cody and Sheila headed into the mini-mart. When they came out, Cody had a twelve-pack of Budweiser tucked under his arm. “Might as well enjoy the ride,” he said, gesturing north toward the high desert.

  And so we hit the road again, driving hard through the sparse terrain. Sheila put her headphones on and stretched out in the back seat. Cody and I cracked beers. I rolled down the window to check the midafternoon temperature and was greeted by a gritty blast of hot air. “Christ, it’s got to be a hundred and ten out there,” Cody said.

  “Beats freezing to death, though,” I said.

  “Your toes still feel it?”

  “Sometimes.”

  “We got those sons of bitches, Dirt. Every one of them.” Cody opened another beer and held it up. “Here’s to every asshole that gets what’s coming to him.”

  An hour later, we shot past the exit for Ridgecrest, a town of about twenty thousand bordering a military weapons testing area. The mountains of the Sequoia National Forest became visible on our left. To the right the land stretched without interruption across the bleak landscape toward Death Valley.

  “The son of a bitch is still gaining on us,” Cody said.

  “Well, this is a perfect road to go for a speed run. I’d say he has a slight horsepower advantage.” I cranked the Ford up to eighty. “If we push it, this heap will overheat.”

  We plodded along for another forty-five minutes, doing our best to make time, heading north along the eastern rim of California. The Sierra Nevada mountain range now flanked us, and I could see the peak of Mount Whitney, the highest point in the continental US, up ahead. We were driving along a section of 395 where the high desert butted up against alpine peaks created by eons of fault block activity, resulting in the southern Sierras.

  “He’s stopped,” Cody said. “In Lone Pine.”

  Sheila took off her headphones. “Where?”

  “I never heard of it. Let’s just hope he stays there long enough for us to catch him.”

  20

  Jimmy was still on a high from his whirlwind tour of Costa Rica. He hadn’t been sure what to expect, but the experience had been everything Larry promised. The women were wild and friendly, and the culture pulsated with a decadent Latin rhythm Jimmy found to his liking. And besides the party life, Larry arranged a deep-sea fishing expedition on a luxury yacht, and Jimmy caught the biggest fish of the day, a six-foot sailfish.

  The previous night, before he flew back on the early flight in the morning, had been an all-timer. He’d brought half a dozen whores to his suite at the El Presidente, and one of them sold him an eight-ball of high-grade Colombian blow, fresh from the border. Jimmy cut lines on a large mirror he removed from the wall, they cranked the music up high, and the girls stripped except for their high heels. The hookers were trying to teach Jimmy and Larry to dance the samba, until finally the party dissolved into a raucous orgy, with couplings of every variety ensuing, girl on girl, two girls on one guy, even oral with no condoms, and on and on until Jimmy’s member was raw, and poor Larry lay passed out face down and bare-assed in the corner. Jimmy left him that way when he jumped into a limo at four-thirty in the morning and barely made his flight.

  He slept in his first-class seat the entire trip and actually felt pretty good when he landed in Vegas. He took a cab straight from the airport to the Mirage, threw his suitcase into the tiny trunk in the Lamborghini’s front section, and drove away. He knew the ass-kissing manager at the Mirage was hoping he’d stay around and drop some more dough at the tables, but Jimmy had other ideas.

  While the women in Costa Rica had been great, none could speak much English, so they couldn’t appreciate Jimmy’s wry sense of humor or insightful comments. Jimmy rubbed at his lips as he drove and felt a pang of panic when he remembered where his mouth had been. Oh well, even if he came down with a raging case of the cankers, his money could surely buy a remedy. Truthfully though, Jimmy thought he’d really reached the point where the constant whoring was no longer exciting. After years of not having a real relationship with a woman, Jimmy felt he might be up for a little genuine female companionship—maybe a woman he could enjoy hanging with, someone he could talk to, and maybe even someone who cared about him.

  As Jimmy drove out of Las Vegas, he thought about all the great things he could offer a woman. He considered that maybe it was time to slow down—he knew he couldn’t continue to party like this forever. Having a cool, sexy babe by his side might lend some stability to his life. The living-out-of-a-hotel routine was getting old. He began to seriously contemplate his next step: the purchase of a mansion. What better way to attract a woman than to impress her with his home?

  Some dickweed in a Corvette blew by Jimmy as he headed west, and Jimmy downshifted and stabbed the throttle. The five-hundred-horsepower engine roared to life, and the Lamborghini accelerated like it was shot from a cannon. Jimmy blew by the Corvette at 150, and reached 170 before he backed off. He had a huge grin plastered on his face. What a rush! His Lamborghini was the baddest car on the road, and he was headed to Tahoe, where the beauty of the alpine lake, plus the abundance of night life, made it the perfect place to live. He had checked out some real-estate magazines, and there were plenty of palatial homes to choose from.

  Jimmy stopped in Barstow to fill his tank. He was thinking of fast food, but the remnant of last night’s blow was whispering his name from the bindle he’d stashed in his pack of Marlboros. So Jimmy put off eating and instead powdered his nose, then hit the gas and hightailed out to 395, north toward Lake Tahoe.

  21

  Despite Cody and Sheila urging me to peg the throttle, I resisted pushing the Ford’s small motor to its breaking point. “It’s the only car we got,” I said. They grumbled briefly and fell silent. It took thirty-five minutes to reach the exit for Lone Pine, which was located at the base of Mount Whitney. I drove across a bridge over a small river and onto the main drag, where crumbling stucco structures with old wood façades were interspersed with newer, remodeled stores and restaurants. Most of the stores on the street offered fishing, camping, and mountaineering gear. The buildings were all dwarfed by a massive pine and fir covered ridge that rose behind the town. It wasn’t long before we spotted Jimmy’s car.

  It was parked in front of Miner’s Bar & Grill, a beat-up, aging joint with a wood-post fence out front, as if they expected a pack of cowboys might ride up at any moment and hitch their horses. We parked, but before we could get out, Sheila said, “Now, listen. After I talk to him awhile, I’ll get up and go to the ladies room. Then you two go sit with him. Tell him you’re not patient men, and he better cooperate.”

  “You mean, scare him a little,” I said.

  “That’s right. Just make it quick. The less said the better. Just make your point and let him be. If he asks questions, don’t answer.”

  Sheila led us into the building. It was a larger room than I expected and my eyes took a moment to adjust to the dim lighting. The air was dusty, and the murmur of voices from the day drinkers was barely discernible. At the far end of
the bar sat a man with shoulder-length blond hair, a dark shirt with some fancy embroidery, and lizard-skin boots.

  Cody and I followed as Sheila approached him. “Hello, Jimmy,” she said. He turned to her and blinked a couple times. Then his mouth fell open and his eyes widened. Cody and I leaned on the bar and watched them. “It’s been a long time,” Sheila said.

  Jimmy stammered something unintelligible, then managed a weak smile. “What brings you out here, Sheila?” Trying to sound cool, like he wasn’t surprised.

  “Let’s go sit, and I’ll tell you.”

  They moved to a far table, and Cody and I took a table about fifteen feet away. Jimmy was facing us, and we stared him down as Sheila spoke quietly. When Jimmy responded, he furrowed his brow and kept turning his hands up, then his eyes went round and he sucked his cheeks in. After ten minutes Sheila left the table and headed to the ladies room.

  We walked over and sat across from Jimmy.

  “Who are you?” he asked.

  “We’re bad news for you, that’s who,” Cody said.

  “This has got to be some kind of joke, right?” Jimmy said, and raised his highball to his lips, but I slapped the glass out of his hand. It thudded against the wooden floorboards, and I could hear the chatter at the bar grow quiet. “I ain’t laughing,” I said.

  “Whoa,” Jimmy said.

  “I hope you have the right answers for Sheila,” Cody said.

  “Hey, I’m just—”

  “But maybe you’ll have to learn the hard way.”

  Jimmy swallowed, out of words for the moment.

  “Don’t be an asshole all your life,” I said, as Sheila came back to the table.

  They talked a few minutes more while we went to the bar to assure the bartender everything was cool. We waited there until Sheila and Jimmy stood and walked toward the front door.