Don Winslow - Way Down on the High Lonely

“Why not?”

Neal sat back in the upholstered seat and looked out through the tinted window.

“Okay,” he said. “Are you going to tell me the whole story now?”

“Not yet.”

“When?”

“When we get back to the hotel.”

So Neal looked out the smoky window and watched the palm trees through the haze of sunshine and smog and wondered what was waiting for him back at the hotel.

Ed Levine looked like a brown bear at the zoo as he climbed out of the swimming pool and shook off the water. He grabbed a towel off his chaise longue, wiped himself off, and stepped to the edge of the pool area to greet Neal Carey.

“I never thought I’d hear myself saying this,” Ed said as he stuck out his hand, “but it’s good to see you.”

“Good to see you,” Neal said, realizing with some surprise that he actually meant it. Ed Levine had been his boss, his rival, his nemesis for about a dozen years.

They stood awkwardly staring at each other for a few moments-Ed in bikini swimming trunks, water dripping into a pool at his feet, Neal trying to keep his new shoes from getting wet.

“So how have you been?” Neal asked.

“Divorced.”

“Sorry.”

“Don’t be. I’m not,” Levine said. “So how was China? Did you have a good time?”

“Terrific.”

Joe Graham asked, “Is this touching moment over? Can we get to work?”

“Is he on?” Levine asked Graham.

“He’s on,” Neal answered.

“Let’s grab a table. I’ve had lunch sent out.”

They sat down at a round, white enamel table with a crank-up umbrella. Levine put on a Hawaiian print shirt that was oversize even on him. Neal draped his jacket over the back of his chair, put his sunglasses on, and watched the beautiful people sunbathing around the pool.

“You look good,” he said to Levine. “You’ve lost some weight.”

“I’ve been working out. Running, weights, squash… the whole bit. I’m in the best shape since I was in the service.”

“That’s good.”

“How about you, Neal, are you in shape?”

Neal thought about the endless trips up the steep mountain slopes, carrying buckets of water and loads of firewood.

“I’m in shape.”

“No, I mean, are you in shape? Operational shape?”

“Yeah, I think so.”

Ed looked over at Graham. Graham nodded.

“I don’t know,” Ed muttered.

A waiter came over. Graham ordered a beer, Ed got an iced tea, Neal an iced coffee. They sat quietly with their own thoughts until the drinks came.

“We wanted you to meet Anne Kelley, hear her story, before you committed to the job.”

“We?”

“Graham and I… and The Man.”

“What’s going on here, Ed?”

The waiter came back, and with a big tray of food.

“I hope no one minds, I ordered for us.”

The waiter set down a pastrami on rye for Graham, a rare cheeseburger and fries for Neal, and a salad for Levine.

“A salad?” Neal asked.

“So?”

“Nothing.”

Ed pointed to Neal’s plate. “It isn’t the Burger Joint,” he said, referring to the little joint that was Neal’s hangout in New York.

“But what is?” asked Neal.

“Right. But if you’d rather have some rice or something…”

Neal shook his head. He was too busy eating to speak. It wasn’t the Burger Joint, but it was still pretty wonderful-food you actually had to grip in your hands.

Levine dug into his salad with an almost grim determination to enjoy it. He downed it in about ten seconds flat, wiped his mouth, and tried to convince himself he was full.

“So, Neal,” he said.

“So, Ed.”

“Here’s the deal. McCall became a disciple of the True Christian Identity Church. C. Wesley Carter has some interesting ties with groups like the Posse Comitatus, the Klan, and the Nazi party,” Levine said, eyeing the cottage fries on Neal’s plate. “Our contacts in the FBI tell us that these groups are starring to get together, trying to establish a nationwide network. The idea is to maintain their aboveground public parties while creating underground terrorist groups loosely gathered under the rubric of White Aryan Resistance. What is this?”

“A radish.”

“Jesus… to coin a phrase.”

“Could you pass that vinegar over?” Neal asked Ed.

Ed handed him the bottle and Neal poured vinegar over his fries.

“Anyway,” Ed continued, “in setting up these little cells these geeks get each other jobs, help their fugitive members hide out… a whole underground network.”

“And if Harley gets into this network we could lose him for good,” Graham added.

“Which is why we need to move fast,” Ed said, “now that we know where he is.”

That’s interesting news, Neal thought. “Where is he?” he asked.

“So,” Ed asked, “you want to do it?”

Neal just wanted to make him work for it a little more. Just to protest a little against this old bit-pretending to let you decide if you want to do the job but refusing to tell you what it is until you say you’ll do it.

Ed leaned over and snatched a cottage fry from Neal’s plate.

“Do what?” Neal asked.

Ed looked to Joe Graham.

“Go undercover, son.”

Undercover. The most exciting and scariest word in the business. The flame that attracts and burns.

“Undercover where?” Neal asked.

Ed munched on one bite of the cottage fry and gestured with the other, making small, vague circles in the air.

“You know, out there.”

Out there, out there. Well, boys, why not? I’ve been out there my whole life.

Six hundred miles out there, a shriek came up from the sagebrush flats. At first it sounded like a coyote in pain, but coyotes don’t howl in the daytime. The sound was human, a scream of agony that lifted and then died in the vast stillness of The High Lonely.

Neal parked alongside the raised wooden sidewalk of the main street of Virginia City, Nevada. He had bought the car, a 1967 Chevrolet Nova, for three hundred dollars in a used car lot in Santa Monica and probably had paid too much for it. It had at one time in its hard life been silver; now it was a dull gray spotted with rust. The driver’s side inside door handle had fallen off in his hands, and he now closed it by sticking two fingers into the panel holes and pulling as hard as he could. The upholstery was torn, you could keep track of the road through the little holes in the floorboard, and the air-conditioning was more like a faint memory of a fall day. The car idled uncontrollably at thirty-five miles per hour and bucked, wheezed, and snorted for a good eight seconds after the ignition was turned off. But the radio worked, the big engine would take a hill, and the old car would settle into an eighty-mile-an-hour gallop and hold it all day. It was a car meant for covering miles.

Which was exactly what Neal did right after pulling out of the used car lot. He had arranged to meet Graham and Levine in Virginia City. They had flown to Reno and were driving from there. But Neal had to drive the whole way because he was the point man, undercover at that, and it wouldn’t do for any of Harley’s buddies to see him coming off an airplane in Reno. Reno was a small town and Virginia City was even smaller. Harley was working in a bar called the Lucky Dollar. He’d apparently gotten cocky and given his employer his social security number, which is a real mistake if people are looking for you. Especially if one of those people is Ed Levine, who tends not to miss that kind of thing.

It was to be a simple bag job. Neal would find McCall, talk a little Identity talk with him, become friends, get invited to his home, then lure him into the waiting arms-so to speak-of Joe Graham and Ed Levine.