La Fierabrosa: A Lyndy Martinez Story, Part-15

Link to Part-1: La Fierabrosa Part-1

Lyndy Life Tip #168: A statement oftentimes attributed to Enzo Ferrari is “horsepower sells cars, but torque wins races.” Don’t believe it. It sounds like one of those BS quotes the person never actually said. And if true, why didn’t he fit a diesel two-stroke in the Dino?

The Spitfire snaked her way to the front of an agitated Barstow crowd, crouching low to remain discrete. Once there, she had a much clearer view of Tammy Ward, looking calm and composed at the wheel of her green Buick. Mrs. Ward had one fist on the Hurst shifter, the other at the six-o-clock position on the steering. Being in the left lane, the fellow in the Datsun was partly obscured; he appeared small in stature, with close-cropped black hair. She might have guessed he was Japanese, but it was hard to tell at such distances.

There were plenty of reasons for Tammy to be calm. She had racing experience, and her big block engine was assembled by her husband Darrel, intended to go fast in a straight line. The only requirements of the driver were steady, clean shifts and nerves of steel. On the other hand, the little Datsun was lighter, more aerodynamic and newer, with a spiffier paint job to match.

Lyndy popped her head up and down like an anxious prairie dog, scanning the crowd for the unmistakable profile of Mr. Chan, but he was nowhere to be seen.

Deep shadows stretched across the pavement. Though late in the afternoon, the atmosphere felt muggy, the onlookers unsettled, with a constant murmuring. A smell of exhaust gases permeated, like perfume signature of carbureted engines.

Amongst the crowd were children, some of them in school clothes—one gripping the handle to a red wagon. Hopefully they were not in for a dose of carnage.

It wasn’t clear how they were planning to start the race, until Lyndy noticed the pinup figure of Cathy Cookson, strutting in white heels to the centerline of 66. She held two checkered handkerchiefs, one dangling from each hand. Her ruby red fingernails could be clearly seen, contrasting with the black and white pattern.

“Blondie? You’ve got to be kidding me,” mouthed Lyndy. Nothing says hillbilly like a flag girl still in her waitress uniform, starting a street race. Like always, the blue dress was a size too small, her golden hair in curls so tightly wound and perfect you’d swear it was a wig.

Lyndy watched as Cathy leaned in, resting fingertips and half her bust on the Buick door, while conversing with Tammy. They were too far away, and the crowd too rowdy, to overhear the conversation. A moment later, miss Cookson poised herself like a decorative statuette in the road. She turned to lock eyes with a man in a business suit, standing at the sidewalk; that man was mouthing instructions. Lyndy recognized him as Big Jeff Parker, owner of the only Chevy dealership in town; he was part owner in The Vanishing Point syndicate as well. Mr. Parker was holding the stopwatch. Standing ten feet away, she spotted his son Todd, shakily loading blank cartridges into a 38 caliber S&W.

“Wow, somebody should write a country song to commemorate this day,” thought Lyndy.

Cathy shouted to both drivers, repeating the rules of the race. Though Lyndy couldn’t hear, by lip reading and Cathy’s exaggerated hand motions, she got the idea the drivers were to turn around at L-street, then come back to the starting line. Jeff Parker knew the distance to the turnaround point, so by using a stopwatch he could check if someone set an impossibly fast time from cheating.

Blondie was fully in her element, smiling to the crowd like she was standing atop a damned parade float. But with the race about to begin, she suddenly faced Lyndy’s direction, her smile quickly melting away. She smacked her lips, glaring with conceit for several seconds. Likely no one else noticed the challenge, but Lyndy did. The Spitfire stared right back without flinching.

“Yes Cathy, thanks for stealing like five or six of my boyfriends over the years.”

Then Cathy raised her arms sharply, lifting both handkerchiefs in the process. The engines revved louder, Tammy’s Buick growling and snarling like a caged beast.

It was easy to be caught up in the enthusiasm, but behind her, an ongoing conversation was out of step with the other murmurs. This dialog was in broken Spanish, and Lyndy nearly tuned it out, until she heard the curious phrase: “La Fierabrosa.”

Two men were involved in a heated exchange but being careful not to attract attention. They were using the Spanish language to talk in code, a sneaky tactic Uncle Octavio and Aunt Rose were experts at, knowing Lyndy and her brother were raised in the American foster care system.

Here’s a fun fact: humans have a field of vision near 120-degrees, which is respectable. On the other hand, your average dairy cow has a range closer to 300-degrees, meaning their only blind spot is directly at the rear; it helps having bulbous eyes on the side of your head.

Lyndy stood on her toes, taking a casual glance in the direction of the Shasta C-store. Being tangential to the men, it allowed her to briefly gather a sense of their mugs. Based on accents and appearance, they were American; she guessed bikers from central or west Texas. Both had mustaches. One of them had a face so ugly he’d make a Morey eel blush.

“But I want to see that chubby girl race,” one of them was arguing.

The other fellow replied that the sun would be down, and they would be setting up camp in total darkness, again.

“We should camp somewhere else tonight,” suggested the first one.

“No way, we need to be at the guzzler. Those were our instructions; wait at the springs with los abrevaderos.”

A synapse fired in Lyndy’s mind; they meant animal troughs.

“Be careful. It’s like grabbing a snapping turtle with ungloved hands,” warned the first one.

BANG!

The crack of a .38 at close range started The Spitfire, testing her ear drums. She should have known it was coming. Cathy had dropped both her arms and was twirling the flags, the crowd suddenly cheering. Screeching tires showered the spectator area with flecks of rubber as smoke fogged the line. Tammy narrowly avoided a burnout, and Cathy was engulfed, quickly vanishing into whiteness like a witch.

The GSX then rocketed from the line, engine roaring. Meanwhile the Datsun launched with a lot less drama, emitting a robotic whir like it was powered by an oversize, evil dental drill. The crowd kept shouting at high volume.

A split second later Lyndy felt a warm hand, fingers big as polish sausages, covering her lips. Another arm reached around her waist, the hand gripping her rib cage with crushing force. Her feet were lifted off the ground six inches, purse dangling by the strap.

“Don’t scream,” growled the man.

Seeing the controlled manner in which that car left the line changed everything.

The Spitfire had no intention of screaming. Though logic dictated grave danger, she had only one thought: “Can it really be that a Japanese vehicle would smoke an American muscle car? One with practically a third less horsepower?”

Maybe that power-to-weight ratio thing had some truth behind it.

The Datsun indeed gained ground at a startling pace, pulling even with Tammy’s Buick, and holding. Like everyone, Lyndy assumed it was going to be a long, nail-biting race.

Then came one of the most uncomfortable noises Lyndy ever heard in her life, worse than a bone snapping. It was a metallic clunk, followed by a crunching that indicated gears disintegrating. The Datsun careened across the center median, having become a projectile on a collision course with the Buick. Tammy was focused on accelerating and shifting gears. The Datsun rammed hard into her door panel, bouncing up and flipping. Debris hurled into the air.

Meanwhile Tammy was shoved out of her lane and onto the curb; you could see her struggling with the wheel to maintain control while knocking down road signs and leveling small trees. Metal car parts and fluids darkened the pavement. Lyndy’s final glimpse was the Datsun, balanced on the driver’s door, smoke rising from its battered hulk.

Then a man’s face blocked her view. He had cloudy hazel eyes—like those border collies with the weird speckled eyeballs—and grayish hair down to his waist, giving him a goat-herder appearance. In his hands he was unwrapping a silver strip of duct tape from a roll. He had the menacing grin thing down, revealing just a hint of yellow teeth. He angled his head to the west. The one holding her tightened his grip on her ribs, ready to start carrying Lyndy like a roll of carpet.

Chaos abounded; Lyndy struggled for air. The surrounding crowd stampeded to the scene of the accident, no one even noticing her attackers.

The man with the tape stepped forward, grabbing a fist full of Lyndy’s black hair and looking her in the eyes. Lyndy winced in discomfort. The way he spoke was deliberate, almost revealing an impediment; he had not been one of the ones arguing before, meaning there was a third henchman somewhere.

“Mister … Wallach … couldn’t … be … here… but … he …  sends … his … regards … from … Loma … Linda.”

From a hospital?

Lyndy wanted to respond, but she had no air to speak. Instead she flung her head as hard as possible into the nose of the man facing her, delivering the stiffest headbutt she’d ever landed. She knew it was effective, because blood splattered her shirt, his clothes, and even got in her eyes.

The man with the long hair backpedaled, covering his broken nose with his palms. As he retreated Lyndy raised her legs, delivering a sharp blow to his stomach with her boots. At the same time, she squirmed, feeling the grip loosen where the hand covered her mouth. She had enough space to get her front teeth around the middle finger, chomping down like biting into a carrot.

The salty taste of blood exploded across her tongue, as she plummeted to the ground.

Lyndy inhaled as deeply as she could. She felt anger rising. Now facing the man she’d bit, she kept her head low, while he swung a wild punch. She rammed him in the waist with her shoulder, knocking his legs out and causing him to fall on his hip. Then grabbing his shirt, she lifted his upper body and punched him in the groin.

“Probably better for this world if you don’t have children,” she declared.

Knowing instinctively the goat herder would try and stick her with a knife, Lyndy rose in a round house kick and nailed him in the forearm. A switchblade landed on the bare pavement.

The last man, tallest of the three, didn’t want anything to do with The Spitfire. He was already absconding from the scene.

Noticing it was in the open, Lyndy dove on the white leather purse. She popped up with the Beretta in her hands, but all three men had their back to her, already weaving into the mass of people in the aftermath.

There were too many bystanders to even contemplate firing. Just having the pistol in her grasp made her uncomfortable, so she quickly shoved it away. She focused on trying to ID what kind of vehicle they departed in.

Her next worried thought was about Tammy, praying she was okay.

Lyndy started hurrying to the location where Tammy had veered off 66, all the while desperately searching for any sign of Wallach’s goons. She never spotted the trio again, but several heavy-duty pickups turned east onto Barstow Road. They’d be setting up camp in the darkness; it seemed she must know where.

For once, she actually wanted to confer with Chan.

 

30 minutes later …

Her watch read a quarter to eight when Lyndy rolled off the asphalt and into the entrance for Riverview Mobile Home Park. Their art deco style “Trailers For Rent” sign had lights aimed from below, but the bulbs all burned out and nobody bothered to replace them.

Her mind was still swirling, and hyper-vigilant. It was like that after every fight.

Lyndy remembered walking here with her brother, holding lit sparklers; how the narrow streets were once coated in pea gravel, and happy people cooked hotdogs on weber grills. But now most spots even the gravel was missing, leaving bare earth—even rocks were abandoning this place.

But Chan liked living here. His plain-Jane trailer was all the way to the back, inconspicuous. His name wasn’t in the directory, nor did it adorn the mailbox. Some said Chan wasn’t even his real surname. He parked the white Cadillac under a shaggy willow tree, tires resting on a bed of dead leaves. It was there.

A stand of cottonwoods separated the trailer park from the bone-dry wash of the Mojave River. Like Lyndy, Chan had a small sitting area behind his trailer, shaded by the trees; it was a place for him to smoke cigars or drink tea. This patio faced a barren levy and could not be viewed from any public road. That was the way Chan intended it; he had a lot of enemies.

Even with this abundant discretion, Chan still slept with his windows open. In the desert you had to make compromises. It was early for him or anyone to have gone to bed, but his windows were open, and lights off. If you opened windows on both sides of a single-wide, then night air could easily circulate across your bed, making it feel at least five degrees cooler.

Lyndy shut off her motor. For a moment, she listened to a symphony of chirping crickets, and the occasional ribbit of a solitary frog.

No interior light came on, but it didn’t mean Chan wasn’t awake and alert.

Lyndy hopped down, pressing the door shut. Then she snuck around the back of the trailer, pushing aside weeds and bushes. Silently, she crept up to one of the bedroom windows. A radio was on, but tuned only to soft static.

“Psst. Hey Chan, you awake?” whispered Lyndy.

She heard rustling from inside, and something massive turning over, causing the bedsprings to creak.

“Hey Chan, are you awake?” repeated Lyndy, louder this time.

“Who’s out there?” replied Chan.

Lyndy could see an outline now, of Mr. Chan upright in bed, clutching either a shotgun or a skinny baseball bat.

“It’s Lyndy. Don’t shoot or nothin!”

She heard a groan, followed by a discouraged sigh. “Melinda, god damn you! You batshit crazy … [fill in your own insensitive remark here. It’s like a mad lib]. Why can’t you knock on a screen door like a normal person?”

“Just let me in okay. We need to talk.”

Chan grunted. “Fine. I put on pants,” he grumbled. Apparently, he’d been lying there on his bed in the nude. Thankfully, Lyndy was able to look away before the light came on. Of course, when temps climbed into the triple digits it wasn’t uncommon for folks to sleep this way. Some people were even known to sleep outside, naked on a cot.

Lyndy picked her way back to the front.

At the door, Chan appeared cranky, but at least he’d put on a man’s undershirt and flannel pajama bottoms.

“Why you not answer a god damn phone when I call you!” scolded Chan.

“I ain’t been home, that’s why.” Lyndy folded her arms. “How come you’re not at the office?”

Chan wiped his forehead on his elbow. “Honestly, it was getting unbearable, too hot to breathe. No fan built by man turn fast enough to cool that Quonset hut. So I come home early to listen to Dodgers, and somehow, I fall asleep.”

“Well that’s a first,” muttered Lyndy, pushing her way into the trailer. “You missed a hell of a street race; folks be talking about that for years.”

“What happened?”

“Tammy competed against some dude in a Datsun, and both cars ended up in a heap on Main.”

“Tammy? Is that the lady who runs the taco hut?”

“Yep,” said Lyndy, opening Chan’s fridge and nabbing a Tecate. “Hey you got any edible food in this dump,” she asked, yanking the foil tab from the can.

“What this look like to you? A Denny’s?”

Lyndy was in the midst of chugging the beer. She had to pause to swallow, so she could then laugh aloud, foam running down her chin.

Chan tied the cord on his sagging pants. “And where is Evan Stone? You supposed to be looking for him.”

“I am looking for him.” Lyndy pointed to the east. “I checked half the dang desert today.”

“And?”

“And I found the cattle rustlers.”

Chan looked ready to blow his top.