Chapter 3

Having been in similar situations several times before, Evan knew that his best bet was not to panic. The instant he discovered that the peyote was missing, he walked back outside and scanned the parking lot again. There was no one suspicious lurking about or watching him, nor were there any suspicious cars parked there. Common sense pointed a finger at Sam, the angry Indian with the Cowboys tee shirt.

“Little bastard,” Evan said, walking back into his room. But he was a ballsy little bastard. Evan couldn’t imagine the guts it took to go through the process of breaking and entering with the police nearly in plain sight.

He sat on the bed to think for a moment, knowing that he had no other choice than to get the drugs back. If he called Emile with this bad news, he’d most likely never get another job from him again. Even worse, Evan had heard of some drug runners being executed for such a disaster. He didn’t think Emile Gorrengo would have any qualms with putting a bullet through his head.

Evan walked back outside and unlocked his car door. The car was a plain looking Camry, as not to catch the eyes of any policemen on any random day and time. Such a plain looking and rather common car would not warrant any unnecessary investigations that would uncover the unregistered handgun beneath the driver’s seat or the various drugs that were often carted around in the trunk.

Evan got into the car, cranked it and cut on the air conditioner. He then reached into the glove compartment and pulled out a map of New Mexico. He looked the map over and realized that even if he was absolutely sure that Sam had come back while he had left for the diner to take the drugs, there was no way to find him. Evan had no idea where Sam lived. According to Emile and various other sources, the peyote was supplied by a small and secretive tribe of Native Americans somewhere out in the New Mexico desert. Having driven along many roads that stretched through that hellish wasteland, Evan knew that it would be a fruitless search.

The only way to get even a clue of the tribe’s whereabouts would be to call back to LA and ask for directions. But that request would no doubt turn a few heads and result in several unwanted questions being asked.

Evan tore the map in half and threw it into the back seat. He looked at himself in the rearview mirror, running a hand through his light brown hair. His eyes still looked tired, making him look a bit older than his twenty-four years. He looked away, sighed and killed the engine.

Back inside his room, he sat on the bed for a while, trying to decide on his best course of action. He glanced to his cell phone from time to time, wondering if the simplest thing to do would be to call LA and try to explain things to Emile. It would be dangerous and could very well end up costing him his life, but it was the only solution he could think of.

Somehow, despite the worry and anger, Evan drifted off to sleep shortly after twelve thirty. When a series of police sirens went blasting by just after one o’ clock, he did not wake up.

___________________________________

What did wake Evan up for the second time on that hot and miserable Tuesday was another knock on the door. This time when he opened his eyes, his head was not hurting as it had in the morning and the world seemed to be a bit clearer.

“Hello?” said a male voice through the door. “Mr. Abner, are you in there?”

“Yeah, I’m here,” Evan said as he slowly got to his feet.

When he answered the door, he recognized the man on the other side as the fellow that had checked him into his room yesterday afternoon.

“Hey,” Evan said. “What can I do for you?”

“It is three o’ clock,” the short balding man said. “Check out was at two. Are you interested in renting the room for another night?”

Evan considered this for a moment and then said, “No thanks. I’m sorry it’s so late. I sort of drifted off. I’ll be by the office in a second to pay up.”

The balding man smiled and nodded. Without saying anything else, he turned and headed back to the office. Evan closed the door and began packing his clothes into his small suitcase, beginning to really understand for the first time the amount of trouble he might be in. With his clothes packed, he looked to the nightstand where his cell phone sat.

He picked it up and studied it. It was no good to him now. The only person he ever called from it was Emile. If he made any other calls from it, the call could be traced. So, if Evan did decide to simply run away from his current situation, the cell phone would be of no use to him. He frowned at the phone and then, in a sudden fit of anger, hefted it through the open bathroom door. The phone hit the tiled wall and shattered into several pieces which made an oddly pleasant sound as they jingled on the floor.

Evan left the room and was once again assaulted by the dreary heat outside. Growing slightly irritated with the weather, he rattled the broken door handle behind him as he exited. As he made his way to the office, he looked down the road towards the intersection.

The road check was no longer in progress. Evan watched as a small car passed through a green light uninterrupted.

In the office, Evan handed the short balding desk clerk his key and paid for the room. “I noticed that the cops are done with the road checks,” Evan commented as he handed the clerk his money. “I take it they found their man?”

“Yeah,” the clerk said. “It was right at one o’ clock. I don’t see how the sirens didn’t wake you when they passed by. But they found him. The guy was drunk, or so they say. He hauled ass after he hit that boy but he ended up running out of the road a few miles out of town.”

“That’s messed up,” Evan said.

“Well what’s really messed up is what happened when they found him,” the clerk said. He scratched at his balding head as he continued, looking around as he did so as if he were about to tell a juicy secret. “The story goes that when they found him and threw the cuffs on him, two policemen started arguing about something as they put the guy in a patrol car. One of them drew their gun and fired. The other cop died right on the spot.”

“There’s something you don’t hear every day,” Evan said with a smirk. And directly behind this, speaking of things you didn’t hear every day, Evan recalled the old man in the extremely short khaki shorts: This asshole spit in my scrambled eggs!

“I think it’s the heat,” the clerk said. “Once it really settles in, it makes people a little wiry, you know?”

“I guess so,” Evan said. “It’s dreadful out there. Anyway, thanks for the room. Take it easy.”

The clerk smiled and nodded.

Evan walked to his car and looked around the block. Shinoe was almost deathly quiet at this hour. There were only five cars on the street and three people walking on the sidewalk directly across from him. It was such a small town that he was surprised that everyone wasn’t still abuzz from the hit and run incident from that morning, or about the police officer shooting one of his own. The more Evan thought about cop-on-cop violence, the weirder the story seemed. The streets were peaceful and quiet, the perfect scene for a man to clear his head and sort his thoughts. But Evan had other ideas, a better place to sort his thoughts without the afternoon heat pressing down on him. He had been there last night and he was sure that he had downed most of their vodka. After all, there was always a temporary escape to be found in the bottom of a bottle.

As he went to unlock his car, he noticed that the car seemed to be a bit lower to the ground than usual, as if he had a flat tire. He hunkered down to check the front right tire and found that it was indeed flat. Only, to say it was flat was an understatement. There was a large puncture mark torn down the front of it.

Evan knew without checking that the other three would be in the same condition. But he checked anyway and proved himself correct. He had no idea how he had missed this when he had come out to look at the map earlier.

Evan stood there for a while, simply staring at the ground. Sam had done this, too. He was sure of it. He’d probably done the tires first and then broken into the room and taken the peyote. For the second time in his ridiculous drug running career, he had been duped. With a curse, he unlocked the car and threw his suitcase in.

He sat in the driver’s seat for a moment, wondering if he should take his gun with him. He decided not to because as weird as things in this town had been today, there was no telling what might happen to him. If he did come in contact with the police for some reason, the unregistered gun being found on him would surely not go over well.

Evan stepped out of the car, closed the door and locked it. “Oh, to hell with this,” he said loudly.

He kicked the car hard, sending a slight pain up his entire leg. He then shook the pain off and headed out of the parking lot. He walked along the sidewalk next to the main highway and started walking east. The bar was only about five miles away and the sun was finally beginning to lose some of its strength as the late afternoon approached.

He walked alone on the side of the gritty streets, not bothering to look back at the hotel parking lot or his useless car again.