Wicked Break

Thirty-two

Brochures handed out by the Chamber of Commerce would have you believe that all of San Diego looks out upon sparkling blue ocean or a harbor dotted with sailboats. A carefree place to visit where everyone has a view of the ocean.

While that is true for the fortunate few who live on the coastline, most of San Diego County is made up of communities set in canyons, hills, and brush that can’t get a sniff of the ocean even on the best day. Thirty miles to the east, Alpine is one of those places.

Interstate 8 snaked us through Mission Valley, north of San Diego State and then out to La Mesa and El Cajon. The highway then elevated up into the small mountain communities near Descanso and Julian, areas that were regularly singed with brush fires every summer, but managed to make comebacks as soon as the flames were extinguished.

The map that Professor Famazio had given me led us to an area just east of Alpine, on the western edge of Cleveland National Forest, before the interstate dropped again and made its way out to El Centro and the scorched desert of Arizona.

“We should let Arizona annex this part of San Diego,” Carter observed, shaking his head. “Tell ’em to send over a few fine-looking ladies from the U of A with a case of beer and it’s theirs.”

“Type that up and send it to the governor,” I said, pulling off the highway and heading north. “Never know what might happen.”

He nodded, as if the thought had never occurred to him. “I think I’ll do that.”

The two-lane asphalt road took us higher into the dense forest, the tall green pines hovering over the road and smothering the air with their aroma. We crested the highest point and started to descend through a series of S-curves. Famazio’s directions indicated a turnoff at the middle of the curves and I found it on our right, easing the Jeep into it, the tires crunching on the gravel.

“We gotta walk a little from here,” I said, opening my door.

“I better get to shoot someone,” Carter grumbled.

I walked around to the back of the Jeep. “No promises.”

He came around to meet me. “I wasn’t asking for permission.”

“You shoot anybody without my permission and it is a long walk back to Mission Beach.”

He stuck his tongue out at me.

We pulled his gear out of the back of the Jeep. The rifles were Ruger Mini-30s. Each had a scope attached to it. I noticed a selector switch on each receiver.

“I thought these were semiautomatics,” I said.

“They were,” he said, laying his on his shoulder. “Originally.”

“You had them converted to fully automatic? That legal?”

He shrugged. “Yeah. Sorta. I don’t know.”

I shook my head.

We divvied up the magazines and walked down a dirt path that led from the turnout. It was steep and narrow and uncomfortable, our feet sliding forward on the loose rocks and uneven terrain every few steps. After ten minutes of walking and sliding, the path leveled off and then disappeared amid a cluster of pines.

“Now where?” Carter asked.

I looked at the map. “Should be right here.”

I moved forward to the trees and saw that about four trees in, the earth dropped away. I heard muffled voices down below.

“This is it,” I said, lowering my voice. I motioned to our right. “Let’s move up here, off the end of the trail.”

We went about ten yards off the trail and found a wider spot between two of the pines at the edge and lay down on our stomachs, putting the guns between us. We inched carefully toward the edge of the landing and looked down.

The area was a hundred feet below us, maybe twenty square yards of dirt and trodden grass. A concrete fire ring was the center of the circular patch. A boom box sat next to the ring, speed metal blaring from the speakers. At the farthest edge of the circle, the front ends of a couple of pickup trucks poked out from just behind the trees. A cache of assault rifles was spread out on the ground near the trucks. A thin trail disappeared into the trees next to the trucks, indicating another entry point.

About a dozen guys lounged in various acts of slackerdom-several in low-slung lawn chairs, a couple shaking their heads to the music, a few more standing, holding cans of beer. They all wore some variation of camouflage pants, white T-shirts, army jackets, and black leather boots.

All of them had one thing in common.

A shaved head.

“Cool,” Carter whispered. “A party.”

“And we didn’t get invites.”

“Probably ’cause we go to the wrong barber.”

We were too high up to make out any of the words in the muffled conversations below us. An occasional laugh drifted up to us, but that was it.

“Can I just pick ’em off?” Carter asked. “One by one?”

“That would probably be Plan Z.”

“What’s Plan A?”

“We lie here and see what happens.”

He glanced at me. “You are so boring.”

“One of my best qualities.”

“Said the really boring guy.”

“Shut up.”

Carter scanned the area. “See your guys anywhere?”

“Nope.”

“How much am I getting paid for this?”

“Same as always.”

He paused. “You’ve never paid me before.”

“Exactly.”

He dropped his head to the tarp and closed his eyes. “Wake me when I can turn this place into a shooting gallery.”

Ten minutes later, he was snoring softly, earning every cent of what I wasn’t paying him.

I watched what went on down below. They stuck together in groups of two or three, talking, laughing, occasionally goofing off with a shove or a fake punch. Most of them appeared to be in their early twenties and it easily could’ve been mistaken for a frat party.

Except for their cue-ball heads and the pile of guns.

After an hour of squinting to make out their tattoos, counting the empty beer cans, and stacking close to a hundred pine needles on Carter’s cheek, I was ready to give up.

I pushed back from the ledge and sat up, stretching the numb muscles in my back and arms. I started to stand up to unkink my legs when I heard a couple of shouts down below and what sounded like the hum of a car engine.

I dropped down to my stomach and slid back to the ledge.

The group was moving slowly over to the area of trees where the trucks were parked. The front end of another vehicle nosed up next to the ones I’d seen before.

My shoulders stiffened as Lonnie emerged from the truck and walked into the circle.

He high-fived several of the guys as a greeting, smiling and nodding confidently.

I pulled one of the Ruger rifles closer to me.

I reached over and punched Carter in the arm. “Hey.”

He lifted his head up with a start, then frowned as the pile of pine needles fell off his face and down around his shirt collar.

He started brushing them off. “What?”

I nodded down at the campground. “Guy in the black T-shirt. That’s one of them.”

The anger that had visited me twice before when I’d encountered Lonnie was knocking in my stomach.

Carter stared down below for a moment. “Where’s the other guy?”

My fingers tingled. “Haven’t seen Mo yet.”

The way Lonnie interacted with his buddies, the way he moved among them, the way they all wanted to say hello to him, it was clear that he was a leader.

I reached out and placed my hand on the rifle.

“Hang on,” Carter said, now fully awake, reacting to my movement. “Let’s see what goes down.”

Lonnie threw his head back, his laugh working into the air and up to us. I could see black stitching across his nose, courtesy of my having slammed it into the floor at my house.

My hand closed around the rifle’s stock.

Lonnie turned back toward the trucks and the trees.

“Dude,” he yelled. “Come on.” There was more laughter in the group.

Carter glanced at me. I looked at him and shrugged. Then I focused back to the trees as a movement caught my attention.

Mo emerged from the pines, a sort of neo-Nazi Bigfoot. He wore a sleeveless black T-shirt, his arms bulging with muscle. A bandage poked out of the shirt near his shoulder where I’d shot him. The canvas pants on his lower half hugged his tree-trunk-like legs.

“Fuck,” Carter said. “He is big.”

Mo was pulling a rope. It was taut and angled down toward the ground as if it were tied to something.

Lonnie motioned for him to hurry up, excitedly, to keep pulling the rope.

“He go deer hunting or something?” Carter asked. “What the hell’s he got on the end of that?”

I watched.

Mo tugged on the rope and glanced behind him. Then he looked back toward the group, leaned forward a little, and started pulling the rope like a trained mule.

I could make out something at the end, sliding heavily through the tree trunks and pine needles.

The group started whooping and hollering, celebrating like a team that had just won a championship.

The end of the rope came into view and I felt myself rising up on my elbows, my mind not believing what it was seeing, my hand clamping down on the rifle.

“Motherfucker,” Carter whispered.

They had gone hunting, alright.

Hands bound, gagged at the mouth, Mo’s rope tied tightly around her ankles, Malia Moreno was their trophy.