Plaster City (A Jimmy Veeder Fiasco) Read online

  PRAISE FOR DOVE SEASON: A JIMMY VEEDER FIASCO

  Winner of the 2012 Spotted Owl Award for Debut Mystery

  “[Johnny Shaw] is excellent at creating a sense of place with a few deft strokes . . . he moves effortlessly between dark comedy and moments that pack a real emotional punch, and he’s got a knack for off-kilter characters who are completely at home in their own personal corners of oddballdom.”

  —Tana French, author of Broken Harbor

  “Johnny Shaw calls Dove Season a Jimmy Veeder Fiasco, but I call it a whole new ballgame; I enjoyed this damn book more than anything else I read this year!”

  —Craig Johnson, author of A Serpent’s Tooth

  “Dove Season is dark and funny, graceful and profane, with beating-heart characters and a setting as vivid as a scorpion sting on a dusty wrist. Debut author Johnny Shaw is a welcome new voice. I’m already looking forward to Jimmy Veeder’s next fiasco.”

  —Sean Doolittle, Thriller Award–winning author of Lake Country

  PRAISE FOR BIG MARIA

  Winner of the 2013 Anthony Award for Best Paperback Original

  “Comic thrillerdom has a new star.”

  —Starred Review, Booklist Online

  “This is one you’ll soon be recommending to your friends. It’s lighthearted but not lightweight, funny as hell but never frivolous. Shaw writes like the bastard son of Donald Westlake and Richard Stark: There’s crime, and criminals, but there’s also a deep vein of good humor that makes Shaw’s writing sparkle. Combine that with his talent for creating memorable characters (the supporting cast, including a mute, severed head, often threatens to steal the show), and you get one of the best reads in recent memory, an adventure story that might just make you mist up every once and awhile, especially during the book’s moving finale.”

  —Mystery Scene magazine

  “Funny, fist-pumping, rockin, right-on, righteous fun.”

  —Barnes & Noble Mystery Blog

  “Shaw has invented ‘dust bowl’ fiction for the 21st century. Funny, sad, madcap, compulsively readable, and ultimately, so very, very wise.”

  —Blake Crouch, author of Pines

  “Johnny Shaw has an incredible talent for moving from darkness to hope, from heart-wrenching to humor, and from profane to sacred. His latest, Big Maria, is an adventure story that’s equal parts Humphrey Bogart and Elmore Leonard, with just a little bit of the Hardy Boys thrown in. I loved every page.”

  —Hilary Davidson, author of Evil in All Its Disguises

  “I loved every page of Big Maria. You don’t often read a gutbustingly funny book that manages to maintain its fundamental seriousness and bad-ass sense of plot. This proves what many of us suspected after Dove Season, that Johnny Shaw is one of the majors already.”

  —Scott Phillips, author of Rake

  ALSO BY JOHNNY SHAW

  Dove Season: A Jimmy Veeder Fiasco

  Big Maria

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  Text copyright © 2014 Johnny Shaw

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  Published by Thomas & Mercer, Seattle

  www.apub.com

  Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Thomas & Mercer are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.

  ISBN-13: 9781477817582

  ISBN-10: 1477817581

  Cover illustration by becker&mayer! LLC

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2013915800

  For Bob Hunt

  CONTENTS

  START READING

  PART ONE

  ONE

  TWO

  THREE

  FOUR

  FIVE

  SIX

  SEVEN

  EIGHT

  NINE

  TEN

  PART TWO

  ELEVEN

  TWELVE

  THIRTEEN

  FOURTEEN

  FIFTEEN

  SIXTEEN

  SEVENTEEN

  EIGHTEEN

  NINETEEN

  TWENTY

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  The Imperial Valley represented in this novel is an entirely fictional version of a real place.

  While Plaster City, California, and the other desert towns depicted do exist, the real Plaster City, Indio, Thermal, and La Quinta bear little similarity or resemblance to the ones in this book, beyond shared locations on the map.

  As I’ve stated in previous works, a hometown is like a younger brother. You can tease him, knock him around, and give him a hard time, but you’ll always love him and stand up for him.

  I might take some liberties and do some name-calling, but this novel was written with the greatest respect and admiration for the people of the Imperial Valley.

  PART ONE

  ONE

  Ceja Carneros hit me so hard he broke his watch on my head.

  His thick fist cranked my jaw and loosened my molars, but it was his chunky fake Rolex that did the real damage. You get what you pay for. The cheap Malaysian knockoff shattered on impact. Shards from the watch face tore my skin. The minute hand pierced my cheek.

  I didn’t know people still wore wristwatches. As the old saw says, you really do learn something new every time you get punched in the face. Here’s another pearl of wisdom: When walking through a door, make sure there isn’t a giant Mexican with one eyebrow and a vicious haymaker on the other side. A crucial life lesson.

  My next educational tidbit came as a straight jab to the bridge of the nose that jellied my legs and drained a sinus-load of brain juice down the back of my throat. The sour taste of all the weird ick that lived in my head brought back the worst kind of memories. All the fights I’d ever lost. It tasted like humiliation and defeat. More literally, it tasted like pickling brine.

  Ceja stood six feet away when I stopped backpedaling, and the stars quit spinning around my head. I gulped down more vinegar, feeling a tooth go down with it. The big ape panted from his two-punch combo, hands on knees. He let a line of spit trail to the ground, keeping his eyes more or less on me, too drunk to fully focus.

  I had no idea why Ceja coldcocked me. I couldn’t remember doing anything to piss him off. Hell, the last time I had seen him was over a month before at our buddy Lansing’s Mormon wedding. If something had happened then, beyond sneaking into the parking lot to take pulls from a much-needed bottle of Southern Comfort, I would have known. To Ceja, revenge was a dish best served straight out of the oven. He was only physically an elephant. His mental capacity and memory were less advanced.

  A quick aside about Mormon weddings. No alcohol. Not even coffee or soda, because of the caffeine thing. An alcohol-free wedding reception is like masturbating for an hour without reaching orgasm. It’s fun at the beginning, but after a while it’s just exhausting and depressing and you want it to be over. Like that, but with dancing.

  “Kill dead on you,” Ceja Yoda-ed. His alcohol breath queased me as a cloud of sour murdered the air between us.

  I didn’t want to hurt the big moron, but I wanted to get hit again even less. I needed to use my sobriety as a strategic advantage. I could think faster, move faster, and exploit my cleverness. I devised a devious and intricate plan.

  I kicked him in the balls.

  Call me old-fashioned, but I prefer the classics.

  It took a lot of booze to ignore a steel-toe to the grapes. C
eja’s eyes watered and he let out a death rattle of an exhale, but he didn’t go down. Instead, he charged, dropping his shoulder and driving into my gut. My back slammed against the brick wall.

  I’m not proud of what happened next. To be honest, I’m not all that proud of the nut-kick either, but you got to work with the tools in your shed. And the closest tools at that moment were the cues in the wall rack.

  When Ceja stepped back to throw another shot, I cracked the pool cue over his head. He didn’t exactly drop. He eventually hit the floor, but his descent was more of a slow, sad crumple. Like his limbs surrendered to gravity, a modern dance version of a Peckinpah death scene. When it was over, he curled up on the ground, fetal. Eyes open, snoring. I thought about giving him an insurance kick, but we were buddies.

  “Rack ’em up,” Bobby Maves said, toasting me from behind the bar. “No, wait. Nice rack! Or, I think that’s my cue—dot-dot-dot—to kick your ass. Get it? Cue. Or something with the word pool in it. I pity the pool?”

  “Why didn’t you help me?”

  “Laughing too hard.”

  Bobby looked closer to the end of his night than the beginning. An even split between Swiss and Mexican, Bobby favored Latin in his look, but identified as white. What we called a Rednexican. A very drunk one. His trademark bone-white pompadour drooped to one side, clipping three inches off his height. Five eight and wiry, Bobby had always relied on his ivory coxcomb to boost his physical stature. His eyes were only slightly redder than his face. If I squinted, he looked like a photo negative of Elvis. Bobby set a glass on the bar, poured a shot of tequila, and slid it toward me as I approached. As I made no move to catch it, the shot glass slid off the bar.

  “Jest ride into town, Hoss?” Bobby twanged, ignoring the broken glass.

  “Bar towel,” I said.

  Bobby reached under the bar and tossed me a damp towel. It didn’t smell too beery. Dabbing at my cheek, it came away bloody, but not much more than if I would have been shaving on a rollercoaster.

  “Now that you’re here,” Bobby said, “have a drink with me.”

  “Fuck this,” I said, turning toward the door. “I’m going home.”

  “Come on. One drink.”

  “I’m tired of this bullshit, Bobby. It’s late. My face hurts. You’re laughing and I’m bleeding.”

  “All right. Don’t drink. But hang out.”

  “Why the hell did Ceja attack me?”

  “I kept calling you. Even before the bar closed,” Bobby said. “Left you like twenty messages. You didn’t pick up.”

  Bobby poured another drink and slid it to me. I caught it, liquor spilling onto my fingers. I licked the tequila off, but I left the glass on the bar.

  “It’s three in the morning. As soon as I saw it was you, I turned my phone off.”

  “What if it was an emergency?”

  “I could live with that. Seriously, I’m out of here. This is stupid.”

  “Some friend you are.”

  “Quit being an asshole. I can’t come out every time you want to play.” I dug my finger into my mouth. “I swallowed a goddamn tooth. If it was my new gold crown, you’re paying for it, digging through my shit to find it. Cost a grand I didn’t have.”

  “Ceja did it. He can do the prospecting.”

  “Take some fucking responsibility.”

  “If you didn’t listen to my messages, how’d you know I was here?”

  “Pinky called Angie,” I said. “You got to quit harassing that sweet old lady.”

  Pinky Gruber owned and operated the bar we were in, Pinky’s Bar & Grill, the toughest bar in Holtville. That’s saying something, considering the Top Hat Saloon and Portagee Joe’s were nightly Thunderdomes. My bar, Morales Bar, would be a contender, but it was outside city limits so it didn’t officially rank. The men and women that frequented Pinky’s knew what they were getting and came back for more. At that moment, an hour past closing, the place was empty. But on most days, regulars filled the shadows for a night of competitive drinking, hobby fighting, and some occasional backseat stinkfinger. It was desert local, border fighty, and Bobby’s Tuesday bar.

  The interior of Pinky’s was what every great bar aspired to be. No frills, all function. A two-pool-table dive’s dive with a long bar and plenty of Johnny Cash on the juke. The sawdust that carpeted the floor was gray and furry from spilled drinks, vomit, and tobacco juice. A few faded Cinco de Mayo beer posters sporting curvy Latinas in bathing suits and sombreros were the only adornment. If Pinky’s Bar & Grill had a decorative motif, it was darkness and a healthy dose of what the fuck are you looking at.

  “Pinky said you wouldn’t leave,” I said. “She said she was going to call the cops. I thought if I came down here, I could put out a fire.”

  “She wanted to close and I wasn’t done drinking.”

  “You can’t drink at home?”

  “I’m a social animal.”

  “I can see that.” I motioned toward the empty—save for the passed-out Ceja—bar.

  “That’s why I called you, drinking buddy.” He nodded toward the drink in front of me. “Catch up.”

  I slid the glass back to Bobby, most of the liquor spilling out.

  “Where’s Pinky? Please tell me she’s not locked in one of the bathrooms.”

  “I wouldn’t do that to Pinky. I love Pinky. She eventually surrendered, left me the keys, and told me to lock up.”

  “You’re paying for those drinks, yeah?” I asked.

  “I’m keeping track.” Bobby held up a dog-eared pad of paper covered in columns and tick marks. There were a lot of tick marks. He made another mark and poured another shot.

  “How many have you had? You look like you’re about to pass out,” I said.

  “The night is young.”

  “No, it ain’t. And neither are we. I’m worried about you, bro. It’s fun when it’s spread out, but since Griselda and you split, this shit’s happening on the regular. You can’t keep it up.”

  “Sure I can,” Bobby said, grinning.

  “Let me rephrase. I can’t.”

  “Have a drink. Let the alcohol decide.”

  “Seriously, Bobby. You’re a bender away from an intervention.”

  Bobby laughed. “If you’re going to throw an intervention, give me a couple days’ notice and I’ll cater the fucker. I’ll pit a pig, get a pony keg, maybe hire a stripper clown. Do it up.”

  “I’m serious.”

  “That’s what’s so adorable. Fuck off, okay? I ain’t hurtin’ no one.”

  “I just got hit in the face. Twice. Lost a fucking tooth. What did you say to Ceja? Why’d he attack me?”

  “I might’ve kinda had something to do with that. I got pissed you were ducking my calls. When Ceja showed up, we got to drinking and bullshitting and reminiscing. This is his drinks.” Bobby held up the pad, pointing to a column with a dozen marks. “I don’t know how we got on the subject—right around my twentieth call—but I told Ceja that his little sister blew you in the backseat of your car after Junior Prom.”

  “You what?”

  “Yeah.”

  “That didn’t happen.”

  “Wait for it.”

  “I was with Darlene What’s-her-face, not getting any. Spent all night boner-stabbing the inside of my tux zipper. I still have a scar.”

  “Wait for it.”

  “I drove Pop’s Chevy LUV then. It’s a pickup. Doesn’t have a backseat.”

  “Wait for it.”

  “Quit saying, ‘Wait’—Oh, hell no. Ceja doesn’t have a sister, does he?”

  “There it is.” Bobby howled. “That’s the best part. At first he didn’t believe me, but after all them drinks. You spin a story right, anyone’ll believe anything.”

  I turned on my stool and looked at Ceja. He snored, his hands in fists jerking slightly, still fighting in his dream. I regretted not giving him that insurance kick.

  “What are you going to do with him?” I said.

  Bobby sh
rugged. “We can’t leave him here. He’d catch all kinds of shit mañana. I’d drive, but I’m in no condition. I know he gave you a beating, but as his friends, we need to throw him in the back of his squad car and get him home.”

  “I’m not feeling like a Good Samaritan.”

  “He could get in real trouble, especially after the last time.”

  “Pinky really called the cops on you.”

  “Yeah, but only because she knows I don’t like to drink alone.”

  Two years. Give or take. That’s how long I’d been back in the Imperial Valley, my stretch of desert between San Diego and Yuma, as far south and as far east as you could go in California. Life on the Mexican border. Life below sea level. A whole new life.

  As strange as it was on most days, I had settled into a routine, become an active member of the community, come to terms with my new present. I had a farm, son, and live-in girlfriend, which made me a farmer, father, and live-in boyfriend. I’m not sure how good I was at any of those things, but I tried like hell and put my everything into it. If caring got things done, I’d be golden. Unfortunately, caring don’t dig a ditch. So I did the work.

  I was poor but happy. When you’d lived by the seat of your pants as long as I had, the edge of bankruptcy wasn’t stressful, it was daily life. On the border, I was often reminded that while things might be tough, there were plenty of people worse off. It sucked to eke out a living, but it sucked more when you had to tackle it alone. With my girlfriend, Angie, we had each other. We had our family. We made sure that Juan, my son, had everything he needed. We figured out a way.

  But for all the love I had for my family, going from sixty to zero hadn’t been easy. For the previous twelve years, I couldn’t have been further from the pace and responsibility of farm living. Twelve irresponsible, insane, fun years. Twelve story-filled, don’t-tell-your-kids-ever, I-remember-eleven-out-of-the-twelve years. I had drifted around the world. Saw cool places, made cool friends, and did cool things. I had spent time in Europe, Asia, South America, and most of the US. Now I was farming one hundred and sixty acres of alfalfa and driving my son to T-ball, right before I ran to the store to get tampons for my girlfriend. I had slammed on the brakes and jackknifed into a straight life.