$200 and a Cadillac

VIII



As far as Hank Norton could tell, the only thing the designation of the Egg Rock Basin as a National Monument had done for the town of Nickelback, California was result in the construction of a brand new Super 8 Motel on the edge of town. The brochures in his room—all of them several years old now—made it clear that there had been a flurry of excitement at first. There were a few new stores, another gas station, and lots of general preparation to become a paradise for mountain bikers and rock climbers. But the promise of becoming the next Moab quickly faded. The designation had been made back when the economy was booming, the government had money to burn, and Congress suddenly went on a brief and inexplicable spending binge protecting the environment. Nine new monuments were designated that year and Egg Rock was one of them.

A three-panel, full-color pamphlet titled, “From Wildcatters to the Wild Outdoors: Exploring Nickelback’s Rich History” informed him that the basin had been accidentally discovered and named by a Standard Oil geologist in 1882 while he searched for fossil fuel in the remote parts of the Mojave Desert. On a particularly hot and cruel day, as Rodney Nickelback clamored over the alluvial remnants of a long ago eroded ridgeline, he crested the hill and saw the narrow valley stretch out below him. He marveled briefly at the odd sandstone boulders. They stood upright, running from forty to eighty feet high, and dotted the landscape like several hundred giant red eggs. Rodney cleaned his glasses on a corner of his shirt, made a hasty notation on his map regarding the location and description of the rocks, and headed back down the loose pile of stones in search of oil.

By the time Rodney Nickelback’s map made it to the head office of Standard Oil and then on to Washington, his simple notation had become Egg Rock’s permanent name. A hundred twenty years later, as Hank Norton sat on his queen-sized bed in his non-smoking room, a direct beneficiary of the new deluxe Super 8 motel at the far end of Main Street, he reflected on the stupidity of the town’s name and wondered how quickly he could finish his work.

He always made it a point to unpack his clothes in a motel room, even if he was only staying for a night. But the unpacking could only be done after all of the drawers and surfaces had been wiped with a hot, damp cloth. He’d done this immediately upon his arrival the night before, after meticulously arranging the damaged surveying equipment along the wall beside the bed. Then he’d taken a shower, and scrubbed himself thoroughly. After scrubbing the tub clean and wiping down the shower stall, Hank had finally been able to crawl into bed where he wondered what the hell he was going to do with no car.

The next morning, Hank showered again, wiped everything down again, dressed, sat on the edge of the bed and got the quarter-inch thick phone book from the drawer of the nightstand. He flipped it open to find that there weren’t even any ads for any car rental companies. He’d forgotten the paperwork in the glove compartment and he had to dial information to get the number for Hertz. Hank put the phonebook back in the drawer, aligning its edges in perfect parallel with the sides of the drawer, and closed it slowly so the book wouldn’t shift. He fidgeted with the phone while he waited to be connected. The lamp was screwed to the nightstand slightly off center and the phone couldn’t sit square with the edge of the nightstand. Hank found it disturbing and cracked his knuckles while he listened to the muzak in the earpiece, trying to forget about the phone’s oddly angular placement next to the lamp.

Finally, a lady came on and asked if she could help him.

“Uh, yeah, I got in a wreck in one of your cars and I need to get a replacement right away.”

This only seemed to confuse the Hertz woman. The fact that he didn’t have his reservation number didn’t help either. After a minute of listening to her type on the other end, the lady came back on the phone.

“We can send a service vehicle out this afternoon.”

“I don’t think you understand. This ain’t a flat tire, the car is wrecked. I need someone to drive a replacement car out here to me.”

“You mean the car is not driveable?”

“That’s what I’m saying.”

“What happened?”

“I hit a wild animal.”

“Why did you do that?”

“Jesus Christ, lady, are you kidding me with this?”

“Sir, unless you cease swearing at me, I will terminate this call.”

“What the f*ck did I say? Look. I’m out in the middle of the desert without a car. That’s not good. The car I rented from you was in an accident and does not work. I paid for the insurance, the car is covered, and now I need a new car and I need someone to drive it out here. What’s hard about that?”

The conversation burned through twenty more minutes and two managers and Hank hung up, unsure if anything was going to be done about the car. He walked across the parking lot to the gas station, bought a cup of coffee and a doughnut, and tried to come up with Plan B.

Hank stood in the gas station parking lot and stared off toward the edge of town, which was all of a few hundred feet away. Beyond the last low building was a vast expanse of open terrain spreading itself below a wide and glowing sky. He had to have a car. There was no two ways about it. He picked up a small flyer full of local classified ads, thinking he might just buy another one. The folks at Hertz could figure things out whenever they decided to pull their heads out of their asses. He had work to do.

Back in his room, Hank flipped through the ads, unable to focus, and then decided to turn his attention to the business of the day. He got the large yellow envelope out from the bottom of his bag. It was thin and unopened. Hank always made it a point to never open the envelope until he got where he was going, that way he really wouldn’t know anything ahead of time. Plausible deniability could come in handy some day.

He sat back at the table and set his coffee on top of the wall-mounted air conditioner to avoid spills. He ensured the door was locked and the shades were drawn tight. He even went into the bathroom and pulled back the shower curtain—it was impossible to be too careful. Then, noticing a small puddle of water he’d missed after his shower, Hank took a hand towel from the rack above the toilet, wiped up the puddle, and then carefully refolded the towel and placed it neatly and squarely atop the stack of the other used towels. Then he readjusted the positioning of the entire stack, moving it back an inch and a half from the edge of the counter so it was centered on the small ledge. Hank paused in front of the mirror and rubbed his chin, looking himself in the eyes. He couldn’t help it if he liked things perfect. Control was an occupational hazard.

Back at the table, he sliced the envelope open with the edge of a key. Inside was a single manila file folder. There were ten photographs and a couple dozen pages of background information. Hank studied the pictures. They spanned fifteen or twenty years. He held one of the younger ones for a closer look and smiled. He knew the guy. Only barely, but he’d met him once or twice, many years ago.

The man’s name was Howard Lugano. A former tough guy known as “Homerun” Howie, who had sold out to save his own ass at the expense of his employer. Hank remembered seeing him at least once at Jackie Johnson’s pool hall, after hours—probably four in the morning. Howie and a couple other goons were still shooting pool and Jackie was bitching about how he wanted to go home. Hank remembered Howie talking loud about how he’d smashed some guy’s head in by tying him to a chair and pretending he was playing T-ball. He said he liked to whack them full force from behind with a Louisville Slugger and watch their eyes pop out the front. Hank remembered sipping scotch and listening to the guy go on and on, trying to impress anyone within earshot with what a bad ass he was. Hank could also remember thinking that a real bad ass wouldn’t have to tie a guy up, or talk about it.

Thousands of guys he’d met in thousands of situations just like that one over the years, and for some reason that one had stuck with him. Howie had been a strange one even then. Find yourself a gimmick, he’d said, be a machete guy, a golf club guy, a chainsaw guy, whatever, just get yourself a gimmick and everyone will know who you are and will know you’re a crazy motherf*cker. Then, when you pulled out your trademark tool of choice, whoever you were dealing with would know you meant business.

But that had never been Hank’s style. Clean, organized, cool. That was the professional way. Get in. Get out. No mess, no noise, no fuss. Get the job done and disappear. Hank was known for not being known. And that was what kept him in high demand.

The problem with a trademark, as Howie found out, was that when the shit hit the fan and they had you, really had you, there wasn’t a damned thing you could do. You had a gimmick, you had an MO, and when the jig was up you were on the hook for a dozen murders. That’s how they’d gotten Howie to turn. But as far as Hank was concerned, everyone should have seen it coming. A loud talker like that would be the first one to crack when the pressure was on. Howie Lugano wasn’t the kind of guy who could play it cool, and his emphasis on drawing attention to himself showed he had no backbone. Anyone who was paying attention could see it, and the feds were paying attention. Lugano could do life in a concrete box for killing a bunch of guys the feds would have liked to kill themselves, or he could talk. And Lugano was a talker, so that’s what he did.

Hank flipped through the highlights of the trial transcript, chuckling and shaking his head as the prosecutor led Lugano through it:

Q. Mr. Lugano, have you ever been paid to murder someone?

A. Yes.

Q. How many times?

A. I don’t know.

Q. Can you give me an estimate? More than five?

A. Oh, sure.

Q. More than ten?

A. Yeah.

Q. Excuse me?

A. I said, yes. More than ten.

Q. Twenty?

A. Probably.

Q. And who paid you to commit these murders?

A. Mr. Fazioli. All orders came from Mr. Fazioli. He controlled everything.

It was amazing. It was obviously rehearsed. And it was bullshit too. Hank seriously doubted that Lugano—who was really just a low-level thug—ever even met Fazioli. He probably had never even seen Fazioli in person before the day he testified. Did the orders come from Fazioli? Sure. But Lugano couldn’t testify to that. Lugano didn’t know a goddamned thing. He just took orders from a guy he met in places like Jackie Johnson’s pool hall.

But it was only a matter of time now. If the information was right, and it had been with two other snitches, Lugano’s days were numbered. Nickelback was a small town and Hank was a professional. If Lugano was there, it wouldn’t take him long to find the loud talking son of a bitch.

What a guy like Lugano didn’t understand was that there was law and justice everywhere. Just because a guy lived a life of crime didn’t mean he wasn’t still subject to certain rules. The cops had one rulebook and guys like Fazioli had another. A careful look at both revealed that the principles behind them were largely the same—it was only the enforcement methods that differed.

Hank studied the pictures again, briefly, and then carefully closed the dossier, ensuring the photos were clipped precisely in the center of the folder. Then he placed it at the bottom of his duffel bag, beneath his copy of Ecce Homo and stood silently in the center of the room. The hotel furniture looked new, and Hank wondered how many people had actually stayed in his room and why they had been there. He imagined strangers sitting on the bed, standing by the closet, or slumped in a chair at the table, drinking a beer and waiting for God knows what. It was the fate of them all, and to Hank it somehow made them seem no different from the other objects in the room: the phone, the lamps, the little stand to set a suitcase on, the pile of broken survey equipment—they were all just things to be used or not used, retained or destroyed or discarded, but most of all, controlled. And that was what he did, it was how he got the job done.

Just as he began focusing again on the irregular placement of the lamp on the night stand, he heard a large truck pull into the parking lot. At his second story window, Hank saw a tow truck pulling in, dragging the smashed Subaru behind it. He went outside and down to the parking lot to flag down the driver.

The man leaned out the window and smiled down at Hank. He was grizzled, missing a tooth, and could have been any age between forty and sixty. “This your car?”

“Yeah.”

“Sheriff wanted it off the side of the road, said you were staying here.”

Hank scratched his head and looked off down the street. A few low strips of buildings and not much else. “Is there a repair shop in town?”

The driver glanced back at the wrecked car and then flashed Hank the toothless grin again, almost laughing. “Oh yeah, we gotta garage alright.”