Blues Highway Blues (A Crossroads Thriller Book 1) Read online

  Ten minutes later a black BMW 730i came screeching up the drive and an acne-faced kid in a maroon windbreaker jumped out and held the driver’s door open. All three men moved toward it, but it was Moog who slid behind the wheel. “Where do you two think you’re going?”

  Rabidoso conceded the wheel to the big man (he told himself he didn’t want to drive anyway) but on his way around to the shotgun seat he opened the trunk and gestured to Daniel. “Get in.”

  Daniel stopped and looked over to Moog, whom he’d already concluded was his best chance of living through the ordeal.

  “Don’t look at him,” Rabidoso chided him. It was now a point of honor and he wasn’t about to be called on it. “I told you—”

  Moog looked at his watch impatiently. Twelve minutes into this little adventure and already his patience was strained to a breaking point. “What exactly is it about security cameras you can’t get into your little bean head?”

  Rabidoso stopped dead. “What did you call me?”

  “Don’t start that shit with me.” The big man was unimpressed with the furious display of righteous indignation. “I meant bean, like tiny and stupid, not beaner.” Completely impassive, he focused his attention on pushing buttons and flipping switches he hoped would adjust the seat to accommodate his frame. “When we finish this job, I’ll hear any complaints you got about racial insensitivity. But right now we got work to do. And that don’t include getting stopped by LVPD two blocks down the Strip because hotel security saw you stuff this guy in the fuckin’ trunk.” He shook his head with exasperation. “I’m starting to think your crew wanted you dead ’cause you’re such a…” His voice softened to an inaudible mumble.

  “What did you say?”

  “I said get in the goddamn car. Everybody in the goddamn car!”

  Still fuming, Rabidoso took the shotgun seat. That left Daniel relegated to the backseat of his own car. It was the first time he’d ever sat there.

  Daniel unwrapped the outer layer of towels and found the other two were saturated with blood. “I think I need to go to a hospital.”

  “Just wrap it back up,” Moog instructed. “Keep pressure on it and you’ll be fine. I once knew a guy outta Denver got his leg cut off just below the knee—”

  “I could bleed to death,” Daniel interrupted. “I need to go to a hospital.”

  “Look it, esse,” Rabidoso said, peering over the top of the seat. “We’re not taking you to any motherfucking hospital. We’re taking you to go get your fucking money. If you don’t make the trip, we’ll just bury your ass in desert. So try not to fucking die.”

  Daniel tried to convince them by showing him the wrapped wound. “But I—”

  “No fucking hospital,” Rabidoso repeated.

  “But I—”

  “Listen,” Moog intervened. “We get out of the city, first stop I’ll get you some gauze and some Neosporin or something.”

  “Neosporin?” Daniel asked incredulously. “You cut my fucking finger off!”

  “Yeah,” Moog said. “Well, you should put Neosporin on it.”

  With Moog’s eye on the speedometer and his foot carefully hovering over the accelerator, they made their way out of Vegas. Careful not to exceed the posted limits, they made their way past the speed traps set up along the I-15 to lighten returning Angelinos of whatever coin they hadn’t already dropped on the tables.

  As soon as they reached the deserted stretches of highway cutting across the Sandy Valley, Moog made up for lost time, punching the six-figure engine until its low, throaty roar was the only sound in the cabin except the barely audible drone of “Today’s Top Hits!” on KLUC.

  Somewhere on the high desert, the radio signal finally surrendered to static. Rabidoso switched off the stereo, folded his arms across his chest, and hunkered down in the hand-sewn leather passenger seat with his eyes shut.

  By the time they crossed the state line, Moog’s eyes were beginning to glaze and once or twice the tires screamed as he veered past the painted white sideline and onto the raised rumble strips.

  The job at hand didn’t include falling asleep at the wheel, so to keep awake he began humming a tune under his breath. It wasn’t recognizable to the others, but every once in a while he punctuated it with the high-pitched refrain, “Cal-eeee-forn-iiii-aaaa.”

  “Whatchu doin’?” Rabidoso finally complained after a half dozen refrains.

  “What?” Moog seemed genuinely surprised the others were still awake. “It’s a little ‘California Love,’ ” the big man explained, as if identifying the tune explained everything. “You know, we just made the state line and I—”

  “‘Chu kiddin’ me?” Rabidoso’s scarred mouth sneered.

  The reaction just confused the big man. “What’s wrong with a little love for Tupac?”

  “Love? For Tupac?” Rabidoso turned back to the window and whispered mostly to himself, “Mano, eres tremendamente maricon.”

  Moog brought his size 14 Ferragamos down hard on the chromed brake pedal and the BMW came to a complete stop in just one hundred twenty-five rubber-smoking feet—exactly as the promotional materials had promised. “Don’t think ’cause I ain’t rockin’ no motherfucking sombrero, I don’t know you just called me a fucking pussy.”

  Like a snake about to bite without giving its victim the benefit of rattling first, Rabidoso sat up straight in his seat but said nothing.

  “Now,” Moog challenged, “You wanna say it again?”

  “Hey, hey!” Daniel leaned forward, getting his hands between them. “Let’s not do this. Here.” He looked out the windows. “In the dark. In the middle of nowhere.”

  It had briefly occurred to Daniel that his immediate problems might be solved if they simply killed one another, but the thought was short-lived. He knew it was much more likely that one of them would kill the other—leaving him the only witness to murder. And if his fate hadn’t already been sealed, that would certainly do the trick.

  No, Daniel had come up with a plan. And to pull it off, he needed to prevent them from killing one another—for the time being, at least.

  “Guys, let’s just take a minute here.” He looked at each of them and was relieved to see their postures soften just a little with his intervention. “There’s nothing wrong with a little love for Tupac. God rest his soul.”

  “Damn straight,” Moog affirmed defiantly. “Pac’s the biggest thing ever come out of LA.”

  It wasn’t an important point. And Daniel knew he should just leave it alone, even as he heard himself cautiously correcting the big man, “Well, the Eagles…”

  “What?” Moog asked.

  “The Eagles,” Daniel repeated solemnly, realizing the foolishness of his comment but unable to stop himself from making it. “They were from LA. And their Greatest Hits has sold more copies than all of Tupac’s discs combined.”

  The little man laughed under his breath.

  The big man made a low, growling sound under his.

  “Not that Tupac’s not great,” Daniel was quick to amend.

  “Mierda,” Rabidoso sneered to himself. “Enrique Iglesias has sold more records than Tupac and the Eagles combined.”

  “Enrique Iglesias?” Moog repeated incredulously. “Who’s the maricon now?”

  “I will show you maricon,” Rabidoso shouted, again stiffening his back in preparation for a standoff Daniel couldn’t afford to have go down.

  “Guys, guys,” he pleaded. “There’s no need. It’s all good. All of it. Tupac. The Eagles.” He paused a moment and then forced himself to continue, “Enrique Iglesias. It’s all good.”

  They all sat there silently. Moog snorted to himself and then pressed back down on the accelerator. “I just don’t stand for no one calling me no maricon,” he grumbled as the car built up speed.

  “Hey,” Daniel hopped in like a UN peacekeeper at a Haitian election. “Let’s not revisit all that. Let’s just agree it’s all good.” Neither one up front said anything.

  “Music,
” Daniel continued, fully aware he was ad-libbing for his life. “They played it when they laid us in our cribs and they’ll play it when they lay us in our graves. And everything in between, all of it’s got its own soundtrack, right? Everything we hang on to, all our memories, they’re all bound to us by music.” He looked nervously at his still-tense companions who were keeping the animosity level uncomfortably high. “You know what I mean?”

  If they did, neither would say so.

  “I remember what song was playing when I drove my first car off the lot. And when I crashed it.” Daniel could laugh at the memory of it now. “I remember what was playing when I had my first beer. And when I puked it back up.” The recollection was so clear he felt nauseated all over again. “Hey, do you remember what was playing when you lost your virginity?”

  There was silence and for a moment Daniel feared he’d pushed things too far.

  Moog smiled and nodded, volunteering, “ ‘Uhh Ahh.’ ”

  “What?” Rabidoso looked over from the window.

  “‘Uhh Ahh,’” the big man repeated. “You know, Boyz II Men.” His mind drifted off into the darkness and a boyish smile crept across his perpetually grim countenance. “LaTanya Harris. Up in her room. While her daddy and brothers were downstairs watching the Chiefs game.” He laughed to himself. “Man, they would’ve whooped my ass if they’d—”

  “‘Si Tu Te Vas,’” Rabidoso interrupted in a soft voice that made him sound almost human. It seemed to surprise him as much as anyone.

  “See Too Who What?” Moog couldn’t resist instigating just a little.

  His mischievous jab went unnoticed by the cold-blooded assassin, who seemed lost in romantic memories of his own. “ ‘Si Tu Te Vas.’ You never heard it? Enrique Iglesias?”

  “Man,” Moog protested, good-naturedly this time. “You gotta stop with that whole Enrique Iglesias thing you got goin’ on.”

  Rabidoso was undeterred. “I don’t remember her name.” His voice trailed off as he fell into an abyss of his own recollections. There was no telling what he found there, but when he returned, he looked out of the window at the passing night. “When it was over,” he said with a note of melancholy to his whispering voice, “I had to kill her.”

  The car’s cabin fell silent for an awful moment.

  “But we can all agree,” Daniel interjected quickly, pretending (and praying) he hadn’t heard what he’d just heard. “Music provides the page our life stories are written on.” He took a deep, desperate breath. “No matter, you know, how disturbing those stories may be.”

  Both of them considered his philosophical assertion. And silently reached an understanding.

  Miles passed without notice as songs and singers were recounted, revered, and ridiculed. Memories were recollected. Stories were told. And more than once “Bullshit!” was called—but no one was stabbed, shot, or beaten to death because of it.

  Before they knew it, the sun was rising behind them and the waters of the Pacific, still shrouded in darkness, were stretched out to the horizon’s end.

  Daniel stopped the story he’d been performing long enough to lean forward and point out the long drive leading away from the Pacific Coast Highway and up an impossibly steep canyon side. “It’s right here.”

  Moog made the turn. Daniel leaned back in his seat to relish dropping the moral of his tale on his captive audience. “And that’s how I learned the one absolutely irrefutable rule of the music business. Maybe, the one irrefutable rule in all of life.” He paused for storytelling effect and lowered his voice for maximum impact. “Never trust a man who wears leather pants.”

  “Why’s that?” Moog wanted to know.

  “They’re an absolute telltale sign of a jerk-off who doesn’t care about anything but creating an image. You get a pair of leather pants on and it’s like twisting your junk in a freaking lanyard. And, man, the stink that comes off a pair after an hour or two is like opening a casket in the summertime. They’re bullshit with pockets and a fly.”

  “And you learned all that from that U2 dude?” the big man wondered out loud.

  “Well, I’ve owned a pair or two myself.” Daniel confessed with a wry smile. “Should we go inside?”

  The house had been designed by a student of John Lautner, with two stories of glass and steel and concrete that looked like a postmodern alien—more Bowie in The Man Who Fell To Earth than E.T. in E.T.—had crashed his luxury starship into the side of a cliff. Daniel had lived there for almost ten years, though he’d never really owned it per se.

  The arrangement was so convoluted, he still wasn’t entirely sure how it was supposed to have worked, but somehow the house had been leased to a holding company, then to another, and then rented back to him in a scheme his accountants had promised would be absolutely bulletproof. Tragically, the overly complicated tax dodge proved not to be estranged-wife-proof.

  It had been on the market for more than two years. Almost since the day she left.

  “This your house?” Moog asked, though it wasn’t so much a question as a statement of amazement. “You some kind of rock star?”

  “No.” Daniel shook off the suggestion like it contained something offensive. “I make them.” He reconsidered the answer for a moment. “Or I used to.” He looked up at his house, admiring it as if he were seeing it for the first time. “That’s where the real money is.”

  “How do you make a rock star?” Moog wanted to know that too.

  When he looked back on it, Daniel couldn’t help thinking the process was an easy one. “You put down your own guitar and give up the misguided notion that lightning’s ever going to strike for you. Then you get serious about learning how the business works and who makes it work. The club promoters. The A&R guys. The assholes who pretend to be A&R guys. The journalists. The critics. The groupies. The hanger-oners. You get to know people. You learn your way through the labyrinth.”

  Moog couldn’t see how all of that made the down payment on a crib like Daniel’s. “Then what?”

  “Then every kid with a pawn shop guitar and a rock-and-roll fantasy will sell you their soul if they think there’s even the slightest chance you can make their dream come true. And if you’re lucky, one of them catches that bit of the lightning you never could. Only this time you’ve got contractual rights to half of it.”

  Moog still didn’t fully grasp the profit potential. “Half of what?”

  “Everything,” Daniel answered with a pirate’s smile. “For me it was a kid named Scott West. Wrote a song called ‘Driving You Out Of My Mind.’”

  The big man thought for a moment before coming up blank. “Never heard of it.”

  Daniel’s voice was cracked and strained as he sang the simple chorus that had transformed his entire life.

  Another minute and I’ll be another mile

  Another mile on down the line

  I’m not sure where I’m going

  I’m just driving you out of my mind

  “I know that.” Moog’s eyes lit up with recognition. “It’s that song from that Ford commercial with that guy—”

  “Chevy,” Daniel corrected.

  The connection to the jingle seemed to impress the big man even more than the house. “And you wrote that?”

  “Not a single word, not a goddamn note. But I own half of it as part of my deal with the guy who did. And when it hit the top of the charts, I had my name on a number one single. I had money. I had success.” He felt momentarily nostalgic.

  “And the thing about success is that it makes being successful a hell of a lot easier. People treat you differently. Opportunities open. The more successful I became, the more people wanted to work with me. The more people wanted to work with me, the more they were willing to give away to me.” It was simple.

  “If you such a playa,” Rabidoso interrupted, “how come your ass so deep in the hole?”

  That was simple too. “Life changes. On a dime. One minute you got it all and the next it’s all got you.” All too
simple. Daniel seemed to drift for a moment into melancholia, but it didn’t last long. “Live long enough and you’ll find that out for yourself,” he promised the little guy.

  “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

  Daniel just smiled knowingly. He took a deep breath of the early-morning ocean air; it seemed sweeter than he’d ever remembered it. “Come on, let’s go inside and get your money.” With that, he led the other two up the tiered walkway of offset granite trapezoids that climbed to the house. All in all, he seemed a bit more cheery than one might have expected from someone about to turn over a million-dollar nest egg.

  If Moog and Rabidoso weren’t both so fuzzy-headed from the long, late-night drive from Vegas, they might have picked up on just how inappropriate his demeanor was. They might have read it as a warning sign, a portent that something was “off.” Maybe if they’d been on their game, if they hadn’t both written Daniel off as a harmless chump, they might have been more prepared when it all went down.

  But “ifs” and “buts” don’t matter to men who think they’re bulletproof. They both blindly followed him inside.

  “Hola, Maria,” Daniel called out brightly to the middle-aged woman who was too engrossed by Al Diablo con los Guapos on the living room’s oversized flat-screen TV to even pretend to be vacuuming.

  She wasn’t startled by her boss’s sudden appearance and she didn’t seem concerned she’d been caught more engaged in her telenovela than her domestic duties. “Hola,” she responded absentmindedly, never taking her eyes from her stories or paying him any real attention

  That is, until she noticed the towel, now spotted with blackened blood, wrapped around his hand. “Mi dios. Qué pasó con la mano?” she asked, though all Daniel understood was her concern. And alarm.

  “Lo hice,” Rabidoso answered proudly.

  Maria had not noticed the other men at first. When she did, she instinctively drew back in fear. “Mr. Erickson?” she asked, seeking some reassurance that they weren’t what she thought they were.

  “Don’t worry.” Daniel smiled warmly and (considering the circumstances) convincingly. “They’re with me. We came to pick up something. Everything’s all right.”