Don Winslow: While Drowning in the Desert

Honesty, relationship… Young people these days. In our day we didn’t worry so much about honesty and relationships. Girls got pregnant, guys married them, we had families, we made out all right.

Anyway she had a good cry and told me all about her and Neal. Imagine that boy not wanting to have a baby with a beautiful girl like this!

But then we got to wondering, Where were Natty and Neal, anyway? When Karen told me about Natty taking Neal’s car and Neal setting off to find him, I started to get real worried. Then I told Karen about Mr. Schaeffer and Miss Done, and the German fellow, and she started to get concerned.

Then Karen called Mr. Graham, and I got on the extension, and the three of started to get worried together.

What could Natty have seen? we all wondered.

“Unless it had something to do with the fire,” I said.

“What fire?” Mr. Graham asked.

“The one next door,” I said.

“Do you happen to know the address?” Mr. Graham asked.

“I can go look,” I said, and I did. The street numbers are painted on the sidewalks. It was 1385 Hopalong Way, and I told Mr. Graham so.

He said he’d call back. In the meantime Karen tried to call Mr. Schaeffer, but he wasn’t in. She found his home phone number but he wasn’t there, either. I’ll just bet he’s out with Miss Done. There’s a spark there, I think.

Mr. Graham called back half an hour later.

“The condo belongs to a Heinz Muller,” he said.

Diary, that’s the German fellow who said he was Natty’s friend! I should have known that Natty wouldn’t be friends with a German. He won’t even ride in a German-made car! What was I thinking about?!

Suddenly, Diary, I knew what had happened! Natty had seen something in connection with the fire! After all, Natty had spent years playing the Catskill hotels-he’d know arson when he saw it.

I think-Oh, excuse me, Diary! There’s the door! It must be Natty! Thank God! I’ll be right back!

From the tape of an illegal microphone planted at the Silverstein residence by Craig Schaeffer. The voices have since been identified as those of Heinz Muller (HM), Hope White (HW) and Karen Hawley (KH).

HW: Just what do you mean, coming in like that?

How did you get in?

HM: What did the old Jew tell you?

HW: I beg your pardon? “Old Jew”? You get out right now before I telephone the police.

HM: What did he tell you?!

HW: Let go of me!

HM: What did he tell you?!

HW: Nothing.

(Sound of a slap.)

(Sound of footsteps.)

KH: Just what the hell do you think you’re doing?! Let her go! Then get your sorry butt out of here before I kick it out.

HM: You terrify me.

KH: Mister, I’ll put this boot so far up your ass you’ll need a pair of vise-grips and a bottle of good whiskey to get it out. HM (Laughing): I would like to see you try.

(Unidentified sound: a dull thump.)

(Various bellowing sounds.)

KH: Hope, call 911.

HW: Honey, I haven’t seen a kick like that since the line at Harrah’s.

KH: Hope, call 911.

HM: Don’t do that.

(Sound of telephone ringing.)

HW: Silverstein residence. Oh, hello, Mr. Graham. Listen, I think we’ve located Mr. Muller. He’s here right now and-Oh, dear, I’m afraid I have to hang up right now. He has a gun.

I should have known.

I mean, I kicked that son of a bitch between the legs so hard I half expected to see his balls come flying out his mouth. The big muscle-bound Kraut hollered like a bull that’s becoming a steer. Neal would probably call this an “apt analogy” because-Well, never mind. You get the picture.

And Neal is always telling me that if I’m going to put a guy down make sure he stays down. You know, finish him off. “Turn out the lights, the party’s over” kind of thing.

As if Neal would know. The last time I saw him fight was a barroom brawl with some white-supremacist trash a couple of years back. Neal blocked a couple of punches with his jaw and then kind of dragged his guy to the floor and passed out on top of him. He wasn’t exactly John Wayne. But he was game.

I think fighting’s stupid, anyway.

It was just that this Muller jerk was so damn arrogant. You know, first he breaks in, then he pushes Hope around, and I’ve just seen enough of that trashy behavior to last a lifetime.

And I gave him a chance. I explicitly told him what would happen if he didn’t leave and he said he’d like to see me try it, and I was happy to oblige him in that particular request.

He was one big, strong, hulking side of beef, too. But every man has his Achilles’ heel, you know, and generally it isn’t anywhere near his foot. I mean if you’ve ever seen a cowboy chasing a little calf, and that calf kicks a hoof back around crotch-high, and you’ve seen that cowboy kneeling in the dirt sucking for air, you have a pretty good idea of what Heinz-baby looked like at that particular moment.

So, anyway, there he was on his knees with his big baby-blues bulging out his stupid face, and that’s where I ought to have finished him off, according to famed pugilist Neal Carey. But I didn’t and the son of a bitch had a gun.

A big pistol. A magnum.

I have a theory about men who own magnums. My theory is that they have to buy one because they don’t have one, you know? And the way this Muller galumph held that handpiece, you just got the feeling that however large and passed out on top of him. He wasn’t exactly John Wayne. But he was game.

I think fighting’s stupid, anyway.

It was just that this Muller jerk was so damn arrogant. You know, first he breaks in, then he pushes Hope around, and I’ve just seen enough of that trashy behavior to last a lifetime.

And I gave him a chance. I explicitly told him what would happen if he didn’t leave and he said he’d like to see me try it, and I was happy to oblige him in that particular request.

He was one big, strong, hulking side of beef, too. But every man has his Achilles’ heel, you know, and generally it isn’t anywhere near his foot. I mean if you’ve ever seen a cowboy chasing a little calf, and that calf kicks a hoof back around crotch-high, and you’ve seen that cowboy kneeling in the dirt sucking for air, you have a pretty good idea of what Heinz-baby looked like at that particular moment.

So, anyway, there he was on his knees with his big baby-blues bulging out his stupid face, and that’s where I ought to have finished him off, according to famed pugilist Neal Carey. But I didn’t and the son of a bitch had a gun.

A big pistol. A magnum.

I have a theory about men who own magnums. My theory is that they have to buy one because they don’t have one, you know? And the way this Muller galumph held that handpiece, you just got the feeling that however large he was elsewhere… well, the big pistol was by way of compensation.

And they talk about us and hormones.

So this Muller turd pulls this gun and says, “This is a. 57 magnum and could blow your head off. So do what I say.”

So I said, “Okay, Heinz-57. You got the gun, big boy, what do you want us to do?”

“What do you know?”

I felt like I was Dustin Hoffman in that movie with Laurence Olivier-you know the one where old Larry’s the Nazi dentist-because I don’t know anything except that maybe Heinz-57 burned his own house down and maybe Silverstein saw him do it, but I didn’t think that was exactly the brightest thing in the world to say at that particular moment.

“I know that you burned your house down and that Natty saw you,” Hope piped up.

She really is a lovely person, but you don’t want her holding your money in a poker game, if you know what I mean.