Drought Read online

  ‘He’s a politician, Kevin, for Christ’s sake. President Obama promised that he would reduce the nation’s deficit.’

  ‘That’s different. This is a natural disaster, not a man-made one.’

  Martin was about to tell Kevin that a broken promise was a broken promise when his cellphone rang and he saw that Saskia Vane was calling him. He excused himself and went outside into the reception area.

  ‘Martin?’ said Saskia. She sounded as if she were in a diner somewhere, with plates clattering and people laughing in the background. ‘I’ve spoken to Bill Schiller in the DA’s office. Your son’s arraignment is tomorrow but Bill has promised me that he’ll look at the possibility of not contesting bail. Your son has no previous criminal record and the circumstances of his case are still very iffy, which are both in his favor. And, well, Bill owes me one.’

  ‘You mean they might let Tyler out?’

  ‘I’m not sure yet. Even if they do, it’s still going to take two or three days at least to arrange bail and Bill doesn’t know how much we’re going to be talking about. It could be fifty thousand. It could be much more. It’s highly unlikely that the judge will let him out on OR.’

  ‘Well, thanks for trying, Saskia. I appreciate it.’

  Saskia hesitated for a moment and then she said, ‘There’s something else you need to know, Martin.’

  ‘OK. What’s that?’

  ‘I shouldn’t be telling you this, but I think you’re one of the good guys.’

  ‘Oh, yes? After everything I’ve said to you?’

  ‘Maybe I deserved it. I’m the best in the business, but you only get to be the best in the business by making other people believe in you, especially when you’re lying. Sometimes the only way to do that is to convince yourself that you’re telling the truth.’

  ‘So what are you going to tell me now?’ Martin asked her. ‘The truth, or a lie, or a lie that you’ve convinced yourself is true?’

  ‘This is true, Martin. We had a meeting of the drought crisis team at seven a.m. this morning, mapping out the areas where we’re going to be shutting down the water supply. All of those neighborhoods that we’ve already shut down are going to stay shut down, at least for another twenty-four hours.’

  ‘They’re going to stay shut down? And you expect me to tell people to keep calm about it?’

  ‘Martin – we just don’t have the water! The average citizen of San Bernardino uses two hundred twenty-six gallons of water every single day. We’ve cut off only thirty-two thousand people out of a total population of two hundred thirty thousand, but that means we’ve managed to save fourteen million gallons of water already.’

  ‘Well, hallelujah! Now you sound like you’re trying to convince me that you and Governor Smiley are the saviors of the planet.’

  ‘Listen to me, Martin, this is serious. We’re cutting off the water supply at West Valley Detention Center.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘That’s right. From noon today. I don’t know for how long.’

  ‘That’s insanity. You can’t deprive prisoners of water. Apart from the fact that it’s inhuman, you’re going to have a riot on your hands that makes all this chanting and rock-tossing we’ve had up until now look like playschool.’

  ‘I know, Martin. But Halford won’t be budged on it. “The inmates of West Valley Detention Center knowingly broke the law, but still the long-suffering taxpayer has to pay for their upkeep,” that’s what he said. “Why should we give them the same privileges as everybody else?”’

  ‘Water isn’t a privilege, Saskia. Water is necessary for human beings to stay alive.’

  ‘That’s why I’m telling you. I personally think this almost amounts to genocide. But most of all I don’t want your son to get hurt.’

  ‘Well, great, thanks. But they’re taking him to West Valley whether I like it or not. What can I do about it?’

  ‘I really don’t know. But I just thought I ought to warn you.’

  ‘Saskia?’ he said. ‘Saskia?’ But her line had gone dead. He tried calling her back but she had switched off her cell and all he heard was her recorded message.

  He stood in reception, his hand pressed to his forehead, trying to think what to do. Brenda stared at him, but she didn’t ask him why he hadn’t gone back in to join Arlene’s team meeting.

  She didn’t even speak when he walked straight out of the office without saying where he was going or when he might be back.

  ELEVEN

  As he drove out of the city center, he could hear shouting and screaming coming from the direction of Meadowbrook Park, and more sirens scribbling and whooping, followed by the sporadic popping of tear-gas guns. A police helicopter was slowly circling around City Hall, its white reflection wavering across one glassy wall after the other, the clatter of its rotors echoing from street to street.

  His cell played ‘Mandolin Rain’ over and over. He glanced at it and saw that Arlene was trying to get in touch, but he didn’t answer it. After five minutes of repeated calling she gave up. He didn’t like to let her down – or the families that he was supposed to be visiting that morning – but this was too urgent. He didn’t have time to argue, or to justify himself.

  He drove west of the city center to the suburb of Rialto. The streets were quiet here, and so he guessed that the water supply hadn’t yet been cut off. Mothers were driving past in SUVs, taking children to school. A mailman was delivering letters. A young dogwalker was taking seven assorted dogs for a walk along West Alru Street, ranging from a St Bernard to a Shiatsu, and straining to keep them all in check.

  South Beechwood Avenue was deserted, but then it usually was – a long, straight street with neat single-story houses on either side, silently baking under the mid-morning sun. Martin reached the 600 block and parked on the corner, outside a white Mexican-style house with arches over its front verandah and a stack of logs outside the garage. The Stars and Stripes hung limply from a flagstaff, as if it were suffering from heat exhaustion.

  He climbed out of his car and went up to the front door. He could hear a TV playing loudly inside and a woman talking. He rang the doorbell and waited. Nobody answered so he rang it again.

  The door was opened almost immediately. Martin found himself confronted by a young round-faced Hispanic woman in a sleeveless red dress and a red checkered apron. From inside the house behind her came a strong smell of frying onions.

  ‘Hi, there. Is Mr Bonaduce at home?’

  ‘Mr Bonaduce? Who wants to know?’

  ‘If he’s at home, tell him it’s Angel.’

  ‘Angel?’ The expression on the girl’s face clearly said, you don’t look like any kind of angel that I’ve ever seen. But she went back inside and Martin heard her say, ‘Mr B! You have a visitor! Calls himself Angel.’

  There was a moment’s pause and then the girl reappeared and now she was smiling. ‘Mr Bonaduce says to come on in.’

  Martin stepped inside and went through to the living room. Sitting in a high-backed brocade armchair in front of the TV was a fortyish man with gray slicked-back hair and a round, homely, Italian-looking face, with bags under his eyes. He was heavily built, with a bulging belly and swollen thighs. It was only when he held out his left hand in greeting that it was obvious that his right arm was missing, and that his empty sleeve was folded and pinned to the side of his dark maroon shirt.

  ‘Charlie, how are you?’ said Martin, shaking his hand.

  ‘Bored, sex-starved,’ said Charlie. ‘Haven’t seen you in a coon’s age, Angel. Take a load off why don’t you?’

  Martin sat down on the end of the couch next to him. ‘Sorry it’s been so long, Charlie. We’ve been three team members short these past six months, so we’ve all been working our asses off.’

  ‘You want a beer? Rosa, bring us a couple of beers, will you, my darling? Only domestic, I’m afraid. I know you like that Indian stuff. This drought affecting you much? I saw on the news that there’s some kind of a riot downtown, on account
of people having their water shut off.’

  ‘I just came from there,’ Martin told him. ‘The whole thing’s turning into a full-blown disaster movie. And it’s affected me personally. My son, anyhow. That’s one of the reasons I’m here, Charlie. I really need your help.’

  ‘I might have known. And here’s me thinking you came here just to talk about pussy and baseball and give me an excuse to get drunk. Not that I need one.’

  Martin told him how Tyler had been arrested for murder and rape, and how he was scheduled to be taken to West Valley Detention Center. He also told him that the water supply to the prison was going to be cut off in less than two-and-a-half hours’ time.

  ‘They’re really going to do that?’ asked Charlie. ‘How the hell did you find that out?’

  ‘I know this woman who’s working for Governor Smiley’s drought emergency team.’

  ‘Oh, yeah? How well do you know her?’

  ‘Not that well. But well enough for her to give me the heads up.’

  Rosa came in with two cold bottles of Rolling Rock. Martin didn’t usually drink before the evening, these days, but today was different. Charlie clinked bottles and said, ‘Here’s to swimmin’ with bow-legged women! So where do I fit into this?’

  ‘You still have those two Colt Commandos and that RPG-Seven?’

  Charlie was about to take a swig from his beer bottle but now he slowly lowered it. ‘Hey, now. Hold on here. What exactly do you have in mind, Angel?’

  ‘I don’t want Tyler locked up in that jail. It’s as simple as that.’

  ‘So what are you planning to do? Blow a hole in the prison wall, and then go in with all guns blazing?’

  Martin shook his head. ‘I’m going to make sure that he never even gets there.’

  ‘Oh, really? And how do you intend to do that? Jesus, Angel, you always were a psycho, even back in Camp Leatherneck.’

  ‘Listen,’ said Martin, ‘the cops have told me that they’ll be driving him away from police headquarters around two p.m. They’ll be heading along the Foothill Freeway because that’s the quickest and the most direct route. That means that approximately fifteen minutes later they’ll be passing the intersection with North Alder Avenue.’

  ‘Go on,’ said Charlie, swallowing beer and wiping his mouth on the side of his sleeve. ‘What are you going to do? Wait on the bridge till the prison bus comes past and then jump on top of it?’

  ‘Who do you think I am? Spiderman? I’m going to do what we used to do with those Taliban trucks in Helmand. I’m going to blow out their tires just before they reach the intersection so they have to take the off ramp up to North Alder Avenue.’

  ‘Supposing they don’t?’

  ‘They’ll still have to stop, even if they stay on the freeway.’

  ‘But then what?’

  ‘That’s when I confront them with the RPG and tell them to let Tyler off the bus or else.’

  ‘Supposing they say no? Supposing they say, “You won’t blow this bus up so long as your son is on board”?’

  ‘They won’t. People don’t think like that when they’re being threatened with a weapon. You know that. They just want to get themselves out of danger.’

  ‘OK … supposing they do let him go. Then what?’

  ‘I hightail it south on North Alder Avenue and then I take a left on Baseline and keep going until I hit downtown.’

  ‘And you don’t think the cops will have put out an APB on you?’

  ‘That’s why I’m heading downtown. The cops will be too tied up with the water riots to worry about looking for me.’

  Charlie thoughtfully finished his beer, and called out, ‘Rosa! Bring us another two beers, will you?’

  ‘Not for me,’ said Martin. ‘I need to keep a very clear head for this.’

  ‘OK,’ said Charlie. ‘Supposing I don’t own those weapons any more. Supposing I sold them. Like, what use are two sub-machine guns and an RPG to an old fart like me with only one arm? If I tried to fire them – shit – I’d only spin around in circles.’

  ‘Charlie, you still have those weapons because they’re part of your life. Those weapons are a testament to the fact that you were a fighting man once, and not just a one-armed cripple.’

  Charlie look at him narrow-eyed. ‘Well, you’re right, of course. I forgot that you were trained in all of that psychiatric shit. OK, you can borrow them. But only borrow, and don’t go killing anybody, OK? If you kill anybody I’m going to say that you took them from me without my knowledge, because there’s no way I’m going to prison for facilitating no murder, no way. Not with one arm, and not in a prison with no fucking water.’

  Martin checked his watch. ‘Thanks, Charlie. I don’t have any idea if this going to work but you know what they say about desperate times.’

  Rosa came in with another beer for Charlie, but before she could give it to him he said, ‘No, Rosa. On second thought, put the top back on it. I’m going to need a clear head, too.’

  ‘What, for watching The Young And The Restless?’ Martin ribbed him.

  ‘No,’ said Charlie. ‘I think you’re going to need back-up. I’m coming with you. It’s about time I got out of this goddamned chair and did something that takes a bit of nerve. The hajjis may have left me with only dickskinner but my balls are still intact.’

  He phoned Peta. He was already formulating in his mind what he was going to do, and even though he knew it was extreme, he couldn’t think of any alternative for protecting his family. When he was in the Marines he had earned a reputation for coming up with tactical solutions that appeared at first to be madness, but which had almost always saved lives. That was how he had earned the nickname ‘Angel’.

  His motto had always been ‘Don’t hope that the worst thing that you can possibly imagine isn’t going to happen, because it will, and a whole lot sooner than you think.’

  ‘Sweetheart,’ he told Peta, ‘we’re going to have to leave, like today.’

  ‘Leave? Why? What are you talking about? We can’t leave. Ella’s still sick and Tyler’s being arraigned tomorrow.’

  ‘Is your water back on?’

  ‘No, not yet, but we still have plenty of that bottled water you brought us.’

  ‘Peta, I don’t think your water is ever going to come back on. Not until it starts raining, and even then it’s going to take weeks for the aquifers to fill up again.’

  ‘So what are we supposed to do?’

  ‘First off, I’m going to go get Tyler.’

  ‘I don’t understand you. They’re taking Tyler to prison.’

  ‘Not if I have anything to do with it, sweetheart.’

  Martin explained to her what Saskia had told him and what he was planning to do. She listened in silence, but when he had finished she said, ‘You’re crazy. Do you know that? You’re totally, utterly crazy.’

  ‘All right, I’m crazy. But what else can I do? Watch my family dying of thirst, or worse?’

  ‘They’ll arrest you as well, and then you’ll be stuck in that detention center along with Tyler, and then you’ll die of thirst, too.’

  ‘Peta, I survived three tours of Afghanistan. I think I can handle myself. Besides, Charlie Bonaduce is going to help me.’

  ‘Charlie Bonaduce? Charlie with only one arm? Now I know that you’ve lost it.’

  Martin said, ‘Peta, please trust me, just this once. Pack a few things for yourself and Ella and have yourselves ready to leave by four p.m. at the latest. If I don’t show, then you’ll know that it’s all gone wrong. I know this sounds insane, but it’s the only way we’re going to survive, I promise you.’

  There was a long pause, and then Peta said, ‘Aren’t you forgetting something?’

  ‘What? I don’t think so.’

  ‘Aren’t you forgetting that we’re not married any more? I never did allow you tell me what to do when we were married, and I’m certainly not going to let you start now.’

  ‘Peta, I love you. You know that. I never stopped lov
ing you. In fact I probably love you more now than I did when we were married.’

  Another long pause. Then, ‘I’ll think about it, Martin. If you can bring Tyler safe home this afternoon, well – I’ll see how I feel then.’

  ‘Peta, this is nothing to do with all of those fights we had. This is a matter of survival. And I mean our survival. Mine, yours, Tyler’s and Ella’s.’

  ‘I’ll see you later, Martin,’ said Peta. ‘And Martin—’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Be safe, Martin. Please. For my sake.’

  TWELVE

  Charlie led him into the spare bedroom. He rolled back the faded blue Chinese rug, and then he handed Martin a long screwdriver.

  ‘You’ll find them under there. Don’t go splintering those floorboards any, will you?’

  Martin knelt down and levered up three of the dark oak floorboards. Underneath, wrapped up in heavy-duty polythene and silver duct tape, were Charlie’s two Colt Commando sub-machine guns with five spare thirty-round magazines and a Russian-made rocket-propelled grenade launcher, with two grenades.

  ‘All clean, oiled, and in perfect working order,’ said Charlie, proudly.

  Martin lifted them out and laid them side by side on the bed. ‘You don’t have to get yourself involved in this, Charlie. You know that.’

  ‘Oh, you try and stop me, Angel. My life is so fucking boring these days I feel like taking out one of these babies and blowing my brains out. The only one reason I don’t is Rosa. I wouldn’t like to give her all of that mess to clear up afterward.’

  Martin said, ‘You can come along with us, if you like, after we’ve rescued Tyler. You still have water here for now, but I don’t know how long it’s going to be before they cut you off, too.’

  Charlie laid his hand on Martin’s shoulder. ‘Thanks for the offer. I’d love to come with you, but it’s not just my arm that’s fucked, remember. That shrapnel I took in my gut … I still have a bag. You don’t want to have the Colostomy Kid slowing you down, now do you?’