Don Winslow: While Drowning in the Desert

“Shoot him.”

“We can’t just shoot him, Nathan.”

“Why not?” Nathan asked. “ He was going to shoot us.”

This was true. It was also true that Heinz was probably still planning on it. But that was another discussion.

“We don’t have anything to tie him up with,” I said. I didn’t want to take a chance on getting that close to Sami anyway. I wasn’t all that confident about my chances for another stunning knockout. “Let’s just leave him where he is and keep the gun on him.”

“Simpler to shoot him,” Nathan said. “You want I should do it?”

“No.”

“I could poke his other eye,” Nathan offered.

“You’re a vicious old man.”

“After what he’s put me through?”

Then he told me about seeing Sami come out of the house with gasoline cans and drive off. How he thought that Sami saw him. How Sami had called him and threatened to kill him and how he had run off to Vegas.

“Is that why you kept stalling?” I asked. “Why you took the car?”

“An Einstein, this boy is.”

“Why didn’t you just tell me?”

“I thought you were with the insurance company,” Nathan said. “That you were going to make me testify.”

“But why get in Sami’s car?”

“What was I going to do? Run?” Nathan asked. “I had almost escaped at the men’s room when you stopped me. Schlemiel. You are dumber maybe than Lou Costello, who did not know salami from pastrami.”

“True,” I said, “but I have a wicked punch.”

“What wicked punch?” he asked. “You knocked a sleeping man unconscious. My grandmother could have made that punch and she’s been dead forty years!”

“Yeah, but he had a gun,” I pointed out.

“He was asleep!” Nathan yelled. “I put him to sleep! What more did you want, I should maybe put a gas mask on his nose, then you could punch him? I should tie up the sleeping man first, maybe? Then you could be a hero and punch the sleeping man?!”

I said, “He was clearly awake before I-It was Lou Costello who brought the salami sandwich to Arthur Minsky?”

Nathan raised his arms, “What do you think I’ve been trying to tell you?!”

Sami woke up. He lifted his head and moaned, “Don’t hit me anymore, okay?”

“Don’t hypnotize you, you mean,” Nathan said.

Sami rubbed his head and looked around. He saw the gun in my hand.

“Heinz isn’t going to like this,” he said.

“Who is Heinz, anyway?” I asked.

“A Nazi,” Nathan said.

“A Nazi?” I asked. “Do you know this guy?

“Who needs to know him?” Nathan asked. “With a name like Heinz? Nazi!”

“That doesn’t necessarily-”

“He is,” Sami said.

“Is what?” I asked.

“A Nazi,” Sami said.

“Aha!” said Nathan.

“And he sent you to kill Nathan?” I asked.

“It’s true,” Sami admitted.

“A Nazi and an Arab want to kill a Jew,” Nathan said. “So what’s new?”

“And he’s coming here to pick you up?”

Sami said, “After I dump your bodies.”

“And you were willing to do all of this for an insurance claim?!” And I thought I was cynical.

Sami shook his head. “Not for the insurance money, okay? For the lawsuit.”

“I don’t get it.”

“Heinz figured it out,” Sami said. “What he planned, okay, was to burn down the condo and leave enough clues so that the insurance company would deny the claim because of arson, but not enough evidence that a jury would decide arson. So you sue the insurance company and the jury gives you millions in puny damages.”

“Punitive damages,” I said.

“Okay,” Sami said.

“And that works?!”

“Oh, yes,” Sami said solemnly. “Heinz has done it many times, okay?”

“I love this country,” I said.

“Me too,” said Sami. “Of course, witnesses are not good, okay?”

“I wasn’t going to be a witness!” Nathan yelled.

Sami asked, “Who knew?”

“Ask,” Nathan snapped. “I would have told you.”

Sami shrugged.

“I assume Heinz owns a gun,” I said.

“A big one.”

“Will he come alone?”

“Heinz has no friends,” said Sami. “Except me, okay?”

“Sami,” I said. “You’re not Heinz’s friend anymore, okay? You’re our friend, okay?”

“Okay.”

“Do you know why this is?” I asked.

It was a rhetorical question, but Sami answered, “Because you have the gun, okay?”

I guess if you grow up in Beirut you have a firm grasp of the dynamics of friendship.

“Because I will shoot you,” I said, “if you try to double-cross us.”

I can’t believe I said that. And yes, I am embarrassed about it. I’m embarrassed for two reasons: One; it’s a tired old line from about thirty-seven bad movies. Two; of course he was going to try to double-cross us.

“No, no, no, no, no,” Sami said. “We’re the friends now, okay?”

As an expression of unabashed duplicity, Henry Kissinger couldn’t have it said it better.

“So you’re going to do exactly what I tell you to do, right?” I said to Sami.

“You bet,” Sami said. “What do you want me to do?”

I tried to maintain some vestige of authority as I said, “I don’t know yet. But when I do know, I want you to do whatever it is.”

With that ringing declaration we settled in to wait for Heinz. Not that it was necessarily a given that Heinz would get there first. I hadn’t checked in with Graham, and knowing him like I do, he’d have already started to track me down.

I figured out that we were in a sort of race in reverse. That is, the longer it took me to chauffeur Heinz-57 to wherever it was we were going, the more time I’d give Joe Graham to get someone there first.

Did you get that?

The point is that I lightened up considerably on my normal lead foot.

See, where I live, Austin, Nevada, is in the middle of your wide-open spaces. In fact they call Route 50, which stretches across Nevada into Utah, “The Loneliest Highway in America,” and we tend to look at the speed limit more as a suggestion than a command. I’ve never gotten a speeding ticket. In fact I don’t even know anyone who’s ever gotten a speeding ticket.

So I normally drive pretty fast but now I slowed down, thinking that “55 Saves Lives” might be pretty literal in this case.

Heinz-57 caught right on.

“You are driving slow,” he said.

“I’m doing the limit.”

“Faster.”

“You told me not to speed.”

He thought about this for a second, then said, “Speed cleverly.”

“It ain’t the autobahn, you know.”

“Step on it.”

I don’t know where he got the “Step on it” bit, but I took him at his word and put that pedal to the floor.

It had nice pickup for a four-wheeler.

“What are you trying to do?!” he yelled.

“Follow instructions!”

“You wish for the police to stop us?!”

Well, yes, bonehead. That’s what I had in mind as long as you gave me permission. I didn’t say that, of course.

Anyway, he yelled, “Slow down!”

“Make up your mind.”

Then Heinz-57 got on the phone and started punching numbers.

“Don’t listen,” he ordered.

“What did you say?” I asked.

“He said not to listen,” Hope answered helpfully.

“I didn’t hear him,” I said. “I wasn’t listening.”

There was something in me that loved jerking Heinz-57’s chain. Maybe it was the hormones.

It didn’t matter, though, because the other party didn’t answer. I could hear that mousy little voice on the other end say, “The mobile phone customer you are trying to reach is not answering. Please hang up and try later.” As if it’s any of their business. I mean if I want to sit there and let that phone ring until Alexander damn Graham Bell gets up and answers it, I will.