OUTLAWS

 

  ~ 1~

Albuquerque, New Mexico

Danny Freeman was sitting in a Chipotles in Albuquerque, New Mexico having an early lunch.  He was sitting at a table in the back with his laptop,  a couple of breakfast Burritos and a coffee.

It had only taken Danny Freeman about fifteen minutes to pack his stuff into his Dodge Caravan. Danny travelled light. Clothes, laptop, phone, black market H&K semi-automatic 9 mm with two clips and his lock-pick tools. 

This was an hour and a half after Denise Elliot, the woman he had lived with for the past two years kicked his ass out. She had gone to work that morning and the note she left on the bed beside him only had two requests. 1. Be gone by the time I get home, and 2. Lock the door and drop the house key into the mail slot.

Danny was happy to comply, because the relationship had gone south rather quickly after Danny got caught fucking around, by a friend of Denise’s, with some chick he had picked up in a low-rent bar in South Valley.

Danny had been a drifter most of his life. This was mainly because his stock-in-trade was as a burglar, a craft he had learned at a young age from his father, Jake, who was no longer among the living. His mother, Theresa, had buggered off when Danny was about four and disappeared into the American landscape never to be seen or heard from again.

So that just left Danny and his dad pretty much to their own devices. When Danny was about twenty-four his dad burgled the wrong house, and took a bullet in the chest from an angry homeowner in the greater Philadelphia area which was his main hunting area.

Once his dad was gone, Danny hung around for about a year, pulled off a several scores and had one close call too many. So he sold the house and all the furniture, packed up the family van with his basics and took off with the objective of getting as far away from Philadelphia as he could.

Danny could have headed in any direction, but chose south and west and ended up in Albuquerque, a place with very little in the way of winter, which he had come to hate in Philly, and no shortage of homes to burgle with relative ease.

Danny was a world-class lock picker and over the last four years he had amassed a modest fortune from his exploits in the greater area of Albuquerque. It was also where he met Denise Elliot.  

Danny dealt mainly in cash and newer high-end jewelry as well as the odd painting. He also knew several reliable fences all over the southwest, since his dad never fenced his loot in the area where he stole it. So after a couple weeks of good scores, a week-long round trip to the New Mexico area was not an uncommon occurrence in Danny’s younger life. In fact, he quite enjoyed these outings with his dad. Listening to his stories, stashing all his tips in his formidable brain and developing a good sense for the areas along the way, where the pickings were anything but slim.

Denise had a pretty good idea about what Danny did, besides his cover occupation, as a writer working on the next great America novel, which was true, although Danny would be the first to admit that he was exactly busting a nut over it. Denise overlooked a lot about Danny because he was a pretty nice guy, not bad looking and a good lover. It was, however, his infidelity, as opposed to his suspected criminality, that finally pissed her off. 

So Danny was heading down to Highway 40 and west to who knew where. The two years he spent with Denise were the longest he had ever been in any one place since he left Philly about seven years earlier.

So here he was ‘headin’ for another joint’ as Dylan would say, with a million three in a Bank America savings account, a relatively new Dodge Caravan and, so far, no police record.

~ 2 ~

It was a hot day in late June as Danny drove down to Highway 25, which would eventually take him through Las Vegas and probably on to California. He didn’t have any particular reason for going to Vegas, and it was on that short drive up to 40 and the time he spent looking out at the flat, arid New Mexico desert that he realized he had no reason to really want to go anywhere in particular, so the Vegas route was as good as any. 

Near the intersection, he stopped for some brunch at a Chipotle, then filled up his tank before heading west on Highway 40.

 While Danny was coming back out to his van after paying for his gas, he noticed a young guy sitting on the railing. He looked to be no more than twenty or twenty one and had a duffle bag beside him. He was wearing a Yankees hat, white sneakers, black jeans and a plain white T-shirt under a denim jacket. He was drinking a can of soda and eating chips from a small bag.

For no reason that he could explain, Danny drove over to the kid and rolled down the window.

“Which way you headed?”

“Vegas.” The kid said.

“That’s where I’m headed, if you want a lift.”

Danny did not give off any sort of gay vibe and the kid picked up on it. He got up and walked over to a trash can ten feet away. He dropped the empty chip bag pop can in, then came back and grabbed his duffle.

Danny opened the sliding side door. “Just toss it in anywhere.”

The kid did and then he got in the passenger side of the van and dropped his shoulder bag in between the seats as Danny closed the side door.

“Danny Freeman.” Danny said, extending his hand.

“Jonah White.” the kid said and the two men shook hands. 

Danny got the van back on Highway 45 and about a minute later, turned onto 40 heading toward Vegas. 

They said nothing for a few minutes. Then Jonah said. “You’ve got a lot of stuff in the back, you movin somewhere?”

“Naa. Just doin’ some travellin’. What about you, Jonah?”

“Poker.”

“Poker? How old are you?”

“Twenty-one.”

“And you’re gonna play poker in Vegas?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay. Well good luck with that.”

“Don’t need it.” Jonah said.

“What does that mean?”

“You come and watch me play. You’ll see.”

“Well I just might do that.”

“And what about you, Danny?”

Danny chuckled. “Let’s just say I hit the past due date of a two-year relationship.”

“Threw you out, eh?”

“More like left a goodbye note. Same result though.”

“Well.” Jonah said. “Shit happens. You going to Vegas to look for a job?”

“Naa. Just goin’ to look around.” Danny said.

“So you don’t work?”

“I do every so often.”

“Must be nice.” Jonah replied

“I don’t know. It’s been a while since I’ve been on the road.”

“Nothing much has changed about the road.”

“Where you from Jonah?”

“Many places. My dad was a fighter pilot. We moved around a lot. I started this trip from Virginia, where my folks live now.”

“But you’re American?”

“Yeah. But I was actually born in Germany.”

“Must have been an interesting.”

“It had its moments. Not a lot of time in any one place to establish any friendships though.”

“Yeah, I can see that. Before the two years that I just got booted out of, I did some drifting myself.”

“So you know what it’s like.”

For sure. But the one good thing is that you learn how to rely on yourself.”

“True enough.” Jonah said.

“You like Dylan, Jonah?”

“Dylan, you mean like Bob Dylan?” 

“Yeah.”

“Well sure. Not so much the new stuff. But yeah.”

“I know a few people who feel the same way. Myself included. The voice has gone creaky.”

Danny slid a CD in the car’s player and Dylan started singing. 

“Blood on The Tracks is the last truly great Dylan album. In my opinion. Lot of good songs, after that, but albums, not so much.” Danny said.

“You’re probably right.” Jonah said. For the next two hours they listened to Dylan and spoke very little. But they both felt quite comfortable in each other’s company even though Danny was about eleven years older.

~ 3 ~

About eight hours later they arrived in Vegas area. They found a nice motel in Henderson, just outside the city. It was right next to a little family restaurant where they had dinner. The two men had bonded during the ride. Danny told Jonah about his secret desire to write ‘The Great American Novel. And Jonah talked about poker. 

They talked some more about poker during dinner and  after they finished eating and were drinking some coffee, Jonah produced a deck of cards, He took them out of their box, put the jokers aside and shuffled the deck several times. Danny noticed that he handled the cards with extreme confidence and dexterity. He dealt out a hand of five cards to each of them. 

Over the next twenty minutes, it became obvious to Danny that young Jonah had some sort of intuitive power. Jonah never mentioned a thing, but Danny was a thief by trade and had a pretty sharp mind. He also was a laissez-faire kind of guy and refused to ask Jonah about how he did what he did. But whatever it was that Jonah had, it was pretty spectacular. It was almost like he was reading Danny’s mind.

They played several hands and in the end, Danny was convinced that this kid was the poker player from hell. So he got very interested in seeing him in a real game. 

“How much cash do you have?” Danny asked. “If it’s none of my business, you don’t have to tell me. I’m just curious.”

“I have about forty grand. I’ve been saving it up from part-time jobs and smaller games on the road. There are card games everywhere. All you gotta do is nose around a bit. To tell the truth, I’ve been waiting for my twenty-first birthday, which was just a couple weeks ago, to come here and play.”

“Well, you certainly managed to clean my clock. Not that that’s any great feat.”

During the last half of their drive into Vegas, they had talked a lot about their lives. Jonah seemed to have an encyclopedic memory. And he knew the game of poker very well. His dad had taught him how to play, and he had read a couple of books on the game that gave him even more knowledge.

After dinner, they walked back to their rooms and Danny said. “Let’s both get a good night’s sleep. I must admit I’m very curious to watch you play.”

“You mean watch me win.” Jonah said.

“Yeah. But you’re in the big leagues here, Jonah. I’d say a cautious approach would be called for.”

“Good advice.”

~ 4 ~

Late the next morning they went back to the same restaurant for breakfast.

“There are about a dozen good-sized casinos here.” Jonah said. “I want to work them all till I can get up to about a quarter million or more and then find a bigger private game or two. And enter a couple of tournaments. There are three coming up this month.”

“You’ve got this all figured out don’t you?” Danny said.

“Yeah, well I’ve been planning it for some time now. I just have to be careful, build my winnings slowly and spread it out across all the casinos. From what I’ve read, word gets around pretty quickly if there’s a real player in town. Nothing the big time players like more than a worthy opponent.”

Danny shook his head and smiled. This kid’s confidence and faith in himself was off the charts, he thought.

The night before Danny drifted off to sleep, he had a thought that what this kid was trying to do might make a great story, something to write about that might turn into something profitable. So he was definitely gonna stick hang around to see just how things worked out. If the kid crashed and burned, well he could always say adios and take off. But if he was all Danny thought he was, that could be something worthwhile.

After breakfast, they went back and checked out of their motel and drove into Las Vegas. They drove up South Las Vegas Boulevard past a number of the bigger hotels and casinos. It was a whole other world, even in the daylight. They found a place to park on East Flamingo, then walked back over to Las Vegas Boulevard and up and down it a couple of times. Jonah had settled on The Encore He’d heard that a lot of good poker was played there in the evenings. So in they went.

They wandered past the cacophony of the slots, the chatter of the roulette tables and the murmur of the blackjack tables to the poker area. There were only a couple of games going on and there were only a few players.

It was later in the afternoon when they had come in, having spent a several hours checking out the other casinos.

“I thought about Blackjack” Jonah said. “But when you do the math, poker is the easiest way to make the most money quickly.”

 “If you say so Jonah.” Danny said.

They found a place to sit with a coffee a few feet above the busiest ten-dollar table and watched the game that was going on. The dealer looked like all the other dealers. He was an excellent card handler, had the slicked back hair and white shirt, black vest and tie outfit. Danny noticed that the game was a lot quieter and slower-paced than the Blackjack table, which he wrote off to Blackjack being a quicker fix. 

Jonah was transfixed on the table. He watched all the players carefully. There were four players and the dealer. Jonah leaned over close to Danny. 

“Keep your eye on the guy in the Hawaiian shirt. He’s got the best hand.”

“And you know this, how?” Danny asked.

Jonah hesitated then then said. “I’ll explain it to you at dinner. It’s on me…least I can do for you givin’ me the lift.”

“Okay,” Danny said and started to watch the guy in the Hawaiian shirt. A few minutes later he was raking in the pot and adding it to his considerable stack.

“We just need to keep our eye on that guy,” Jonah said “Because he’ll lead us to the bigger games. He’s just down here fuckin’ around till the big money players show up.” 

They watched the game for another hour or so and the guy in the Hawaiian slowly but steadily accumulated a whole lot of ten-dollar chips. Within an hour he had broken two of the other three players and the third just shook his head, gathered up his remaining chips and walked away. The man in the Hawaiian shirt gathered his winnings walked to the cashier, after throwing a small stack of chips to the dealer, who just nodded and smiled. Danny looked over at Jonah. “See.”

“Wow.” Danny said.

~ 5 ~

Danny and Jonah got up and walked back to the buffet, where they loaded up their plates and poured out soft drinks for themselves. Jonah paid for the food and then they walked back to the table where they were sitting at before.

While they were eating, Jonah said. “When I was about thirteen or so I, uh, started hearing things. A lot of noise for the couple of years. I didn’t understand what was happening. I thought I had something wrong with my ears or my brain. Everywhere I went it sounded like I was in the middle of a crowd at a football game. The only place it was quiet in my head was in my room. But whenever I was around other people, the noise would start again. I thought I was going crazy. But after a while I started figuring it out.”

Danny was transfixed. This sounded like some kind of science fiction.

“I finally finally started to understand that what I was hearing was actually what the other people around me were thinking. I know it sounds crazy right?”

Danny just cocked his head. “So what did you do about it?”

“You know the old expression ‘knowledge is power.’ Well once I understood what was happening, or at least thought I did,  I began to teach myself how to, I guess, control it. It took a couple of years, and it really sapped my energy. But then one day, I just woke up and realized that I had it figured out and could just, you know, focus it. When we were watching the guy in the Hawaiian shirt taking those rubes to the cleaners, I was focused on him. I knew what he was holding and as I jumped around the table. I knew what each of the other players was holding too.” 

Danny took a bite of his sandwich and a sip of his soft drink. 

“So that’s why I’m here.” Jonah said. “I’ve got this…thing that I can do. I’m gonna make a ton of money and move to California, get a place on the beach and learn how to surf. When I get low on money. I’ll come back again and get some more.”

Danny rubbed his eyes with the palms of his hands and then said. “This is for real?”

“Yep. And you are the only other human on the planet who knows it. I didn’t even tell my folks. They would have thought I was nuts and had me seeing a shrink. I have no idea why I told you. From the listening I have been doing I just feel like I can trust you. And by the way, I know what you do as well.”

“You do?”

“Yeah. You’re a pretty high-end thief. You only steal from rich people because they mostly don’t want anything to do with the cops. I know you’ve got a H&K semi automatic 9 millimeter pistol and two ammo clips in one of your bags. I know the gun is unregistered and has had the serial number expertly removed. I also know you’re not gay. But best of all, Danny, I know that you fucking believe my story.”

“So I guess I have to be pretty careful around you.”

 “No. You don’t because I have control of this I can turn it on and off and focus it at will. I also know that you have a black belt in Tai Kwan Do. And that you would make an excellent bodyguard for me on these excursions. You’re a bit of a loner like me. So maybe we can, you know, be business partners. I’ll win the money. You keep the creeps from trying to take it from me. ”

Danny didn’t say anything for a while. Then he asked. “How much are you planning to walk away from Vegas with?”

“Twelve million, give or take. That will get me a half decent beach house and some surfing lessons in California,  And being able to live well for a year or two. Twenty five percent of that twelve or whatever it turns out to be will be for you.”

Danny chuckled because, despite all he had just heard Jonah tell him, he had a lot of trouble believing that this kid could pull it off. This was Vegas and the people he would be playing against weren’t exactly bumpkins The trouble was that he sounded so damn confident in his abilities. But at the end of the day, Danny really had nothing better to do. He had thought about breaking into some of the rooms, but these hotels had security up the wazoo and he knew, that even cleverly disguised, he wouldn't last ten minutes. No, he was much happier working in upscale suburban neighbourhoods where the where the owners valued their privacy and really didn’t like having much at all to do with cops.

He was also happy to wait it out and see if the kid could really do what he said he could do. A potential for two or  three million was nothing to sneeze at. And he knew enough about Vegas to get that that kind of money was always floating around. Then of course there was the story he could write, which Jonah hadn’t said anything about.

“Okay, Jonah.” Danny said. “You’re on.” And they shook on it.

“Glad to hear it.” Jonah said and took another bite of his sandwich. “I can pull this off, Danny. I know you have your doubts and I don’t blame you ‘cause it sounds batshit crazy, right? But my faith trumps your doubts, my friend.”

They spent the rest of the afternoon afternoon wandering around and checking out the action at several of the other casinos. After a while, Danny couldn’t really tell one card game from another.

When they got back to the Encore, Jonah said. “Let’s check in here. I’ll do well enough tonight that they will comp us our room.”

“Okay Jonah. But I’m taking a leap of faith here.”

Jonah just chuckled. “You’re a cautious man, Danny. Anyone who works on the other side of the law usually is. The ones who aren’t are mostly in prison.”

“So what side of the law are you on, Jonah?”

“That’s a good question. Hope it never comes to having to decide.”

They got the car then drove into the Encore’s entrance and got their luggage onto a rack and into their room. Jonah made it clear to the desk clerk that he was there to play poker. The clerk wished him luck. Jonah just smiled.

They both had showers and laid down on the two double beds.

“We’ll probably head down to the casino at around nine, get something to eat and then find a game.” Jonah said.

“You’re drivin’ the car, Jonah.”

“Yeah, but we’re both in it.”

~ 6 ~

They watched the $100 tables as they were eating dinner. Jonah was looking for the table with the players with the most chips. Once he found that table, he began to focus on the players. All of them were pretty astute. They played casually but carefully, because they respected the game and knew anything could happen.

They were drinking their coffee when Jonah noticed one of the players at the full table was losing badly. 

“I found my table, Danny.” Jonah said as he got to his feet and walked over slowly. He got there just as the man he had been watching ran dry and got up from his seat. Jonah sat down and counted out five thousand in five hundred dollar bills and the dealer gave him a sizeable stack of chips.

Danny got another coffee and moved to a table where he could more clearly see Jonah’s game. He sat mesmerized as Jonah seemed to turn into another creature. More methodical, quieter, more focused…older even.

There were five players at the table. Within two hours there were three. Within four hours there were two, just Jonah and a good-looking woman who was dressed in a nicely tailored cowgirl outfit. She was sharp as a tack. But she was no match for Jonah, and it frustrated the hell out of her. Bit by bit, he ate away at her stack. She asked the dealer if he could get permission to raise the limit from one hundred to three hundred. Jonah just nodded. The dealer summoned one of the table supervisors and he agreed. A small crowd had gathered on the far side of the table. Nobody wanted to get into this game, because their intuitions told them this was a duel to the death. Hand by hand, they went back and forth with Jonah only pressing when he knew he had the advantage. An hour later, the lady was wiped out. She offered her hand to Jonah who shook it lightly and smiled. He gathered up his chips in a rack the dealer gave him. He tossed a stack of five back to the dealer. He then cashed out. The value of his chips was about forty seven thousand. So a net profit for the night of about forty two thousand Which he took in thousands, hundreds and tens. 

They went to the bar and Jonah ordered a double scotch. Danny had the same.

“That was really something.” Danny said.

“Yeah it’s all in making sure you move slowly and deliberately. I’m not a big bluffer. Mostly because I don’t have to be. I just strike when I know I’m gonna come out ahead.” Then he looked at Danny. “And that’s how it fucking works.”

Danny couldn’t help but chuckle.

“We need to find a bank tomorrow.” Danny said. “Your skills aside, I’d feel a lot better with most of it stashed somewhere safe.”

They finished their drinks and went back to their room. On one of the beds they found a nicely printed card. It read “Thank you for choosing the Encore. Your room is free with our compliments for as long as you continue to play here.”

“See. What did I tell you.” Jonah said. “They love me.”

 They both slept late the next day. Danny because he always had, and Jonah because whatever it was he had sucked all the energy right out of him.

After lunch, which was really breakfast they found a Wells Fargo bank close by and Jonah opened an account and put his own thirty nine thousand and thirty thousand of his winnings in it.

They continued to scope out the late day games where Jonah got a pretty good handle on who to look for at night.  

His run at the Encore lasted three nights. Each night was progressively more profitable than the night before. By the time they left, he had close to $270,000 in his bank account and $20,000 in playing money.

Over the next three weeks, they made the rounds of the larger casinos and after the third, he was getting known, so at the fourth hotel, the MGM Grand, he was invited upstairs to one of the higher stakes games. This is where the real gamblers were. But the bottom line was that it didn’t matter. He slowly, calmly and methodically built his winnings. Danny had taken to reading novels on his Kindle while Jonah played, dividing his attention between the books and the twenty-one year old who was taking some of the country’s most seasoned gamblers unceremoniously to the cleaners. 

And that, Danny reckoned, was the thing of it. Jonah was always quiet and humble. There was no glimmer of ‘gotcha’ in his psyche or his body language. He just beat them cleanly. They had no reason to be suspicious. They just understood that this kid, whoever the fuck he was, was a damn fine poker player.

After five and a half weeks, eight casino visits, six private games and a couple of sizeable tournament wins, Jonah announced that they had hit their target. Actually, they had passed it by about four million which was about sixteen and a half million. 

Before they left for California, Jonah had close to four million transferred into Danny’s Capital One account. After a good night’s sleep at the Sands and a hearty breakfast at a local Ihop, they packed up and headed out, California bound.

~ 7 ~

On the way across the desert, Jonah said. “Look, I really appreciate your hanging with me through these last few weeks. But once we get to LA, if you want to move on, just leave me your phone and email. I figure I can live pretty nicely for a while on what I have and so can you. I just don’t want you to feel obligated in any way.”

Danny smiled. “You know, when I picked you up, I had no idea where I was going. Nothing has really changed. I think it would be cool to learn how to surf. Maybe meet some ladies, that sort of thing. Live well in one place. I’ve got enough in the bank now to take me wherever I want to go. But, hey,  California is as good as anywhere.

“So we stick together?” Jonah asked.d

“For the time being. If that’s OK with you.”

“Sure. But I am gonna get my own car once we get to LA. And the house will be all mine.”

“Fine with me. I, uhh, you know, being in my line of work, I never had the luxury of making many friends. You’re the first one in a long time, Jonah.”

“Okay,” Jonah said. “California, here we come.”

They skirted most of L.A. and came in on the 101 and down to the coast through Topanga State Park then took Highway 1 into Malibu. It was a Sunday afternoon so there was not a ton of traffic. But it was jarring nonetheless, having come in out of the desert where they were pretty much the only vehicle on the road until they hit the LA suburbs

They then headed back toward the city and after a few miles found a cool-looking motel called the Surf Rider. They checked in and got a ground-floor room, brought in their bags then walked next door to a Jack in the Box. They picked up a local newspaper, got their food and sat down at a table in the back. They sat side by side so they could look through the classifieds together. 

They were particularly attracted to one agent. Someone named Jody Adams, a Re/Max agent, who seemed to have several properties along the beach both for sale and lease.

“You know,” Danny said. “Neither of us knows our way around here. Maybe you should consider a short term lease, say three months until we get this all figured out.”

“That’s a good idea.” Jonah said after taking about five whole seconds to think about it.

~ 8 ~

Jonah gave Jody Adams a call, got a message machine and left a message explaining they were looking for some beachfront property in the Malibu area on a short-term lease or rental. They didn’t see too much else that was interesting, so Jonah folded up the paper and they ate their sandwiches. About an hour later, Jody Adams called Jonah back. She gave them the address of her office, which was quite close to the motel and they agreed to meet up there. 

Twenty minutes later they were sitting in Jody’s Lexus. Jody turned out to be quite a good-looking woman in her thirties. She took them on a guided tour of three properties, which were available for lease. They ranged in price from $4500 a month to $5200, which included all utilities, except for wifi. She watched Jonah carefully for any flinching over the prices and when she saw that wasn’t going to happen, she realized she had a live one. Jonah told her that he was looking to buy, eventually, but really wanted to get a feel for the coastal communities before he decided. Jody told him that was a pretty smart way to go about it and that she could help him when he was ready to buy, or extend his lease, whatever he wanted.

Danny stayed very much in the background. It was Jonah’s gig, he thought, so he wasn’t going to offer any opinion until he was asked. He figured that suggesting Jonah lease or rent instead of buy was enough.

All three houses had no occupants and were, not surprisingly, all nicely furnished. Jonah and Danny both reckoned there was a lot of money in California and that whoever owned these houses had houses somewhere else. Maybe even on another continent.

They ended up making their decision based on the back decks of the houses, on which they figured they would be spending most of their time, and the quality of the beach behind the property. 

Two days later, Jonah had paid for all three months and he and Danny had done a pretty massive food shop to supply themselves with steaks, veggies and the best coffee they could find.

The next day, they drove into LA where Jonah purchased a one-year-old Mustang convertible that was painted a deep shade of crimson red. On the way back to Malibu, they stopped at a computer shop and purchased a freestanding Internet signal catcher. It was about the size of a pack of cigarettes, and the guy at the shop told them they could run up to ten devices off it. And it was a hell of a lot more private than signing up with an Internet Carrier like AOL or Bell.

That evening, they barbecued some steaks and baked potatoes. Jonah made a Caesar salad and they sat out on the deck eating and watching the sunset over the ocean.

“This is every bit as cool as I’ve been imagining it would be, Danny.” Jonah said

“Yeah, it’s pretty decent.” Danny replied. “I can see why there are so many people here. The weather is great and the ocean is spectacular. I guess, at some point, we should get the surfing thing figured out.”

“Already done. I found a place just three miles up the coast from here. They sell all the gear and the boards and have regular classes. We can head up there tomorrow.”

~ 9 ~

As they ate their dinner as the sun set into the Pacific.  As they did Danny looked over at his young friend. 

“I know you’re a gambler, and you have this special skill so if you’re careful you’ll be able to make a fuck of a lot of money…”

“But?” Jonah said.

“But, uh, I was just wondering if you ever really thought about other ways you can use this talent you have.”

“I do think about that from time to time.” Jonah replied, “I’ve just never really landed on anything solid. Maybe it’s because I’ve been obsessed with getting right here where we are now, knowing that what I have is gonna take care of me for like ever. Do you have any ideas?”

“Nothing specific.” Danny replied. “It was just a thought that occurred to me. I mean, I was just wondering if there some way for you to use your gift to help other people.”

Jonah said nothing for quite a while. He just ate his dinner and stared out at the ocean. Finally, he said. “I suppose there are a lot of ways that I could help people. I think the big challenge would be getting anyone to believe me in the first  place. On top of that, I really don’t want anyone to know that I can do this, ‘cause you never know who talks to who. Last thing I want is some asshole showing up with a gun and forcing me into some kind of bullshit situation that could get me killed.”

Danny leaned back in his chair. “I never thought about that.” he said.

“I’m happy to try anything as long as it keeps my skill from being discovered. If we wanted to do this, you would have to be the frontman. And I think you’re smart enough to pull that off.”

They didn’t talk all that much about it for the next few days, mainly because they wanted to focus on their surfing lessons and see if they could actually get out there and ride those waves. 

Their instructor a twenty-year-old guy named Devo, put them through the paces, first learning to kneel on the board and get to their feet. It was one thing to be able to do that in water that you knew was only a couple of feet deep and relatively calm, so  both Danny and Jonah mastered it fairly quickly. But once they were out in the deep water and the waves they were trying to catch were four or five feet high it was a whole different ball game. And both men understood why they were attached to their boards with cables that fastened around their ankles. 

Two days and a couple dozen fairly graceless spills later, they had pretty much figured it out, at least for the smaller waves. That day, they both rode about about ten of them and purchased their boards, which Danny fastened to the roof of the van before they headed home.

They found a website called ‘Surf City USA’ that gave them surf info on all the beaches up as far Big Sur to the north and Solana Beach just outside San Diego to the south.

They spent the next few weeks chasing the smaller waves and, as they did, their skills improved. They avoided the big breakers like the plague, because they knew it would take quite some time and a ton of courage before they would be able to tackle those. But they had a good time, burned up a lot of energy, ate a good deal of seaside food and started to got to know some of the regulars.

Because of the differences in their ages, they got to be known as ‘The Odd Couple’, which one of the Mexican guys they met had dubbed them. His surfer name was Buster Churro, because he pretty much lived on churros. He was a big wave rider and told them about the best spots to see the big waves coming in and watch the more accomplished surfers as they attacked them. 

~ 10 ~

Over the next three months, this became their life. Up in the morning, a solid breakfast, lots of protein and then head off to tick another beach off their list. 

After three months and a bit they had seen pretty much all of the Southern California coastline and realized that where they were living was in one of relatively few areas with a good deal of nice beachfront property.

So Jonah called Jody the real estate lady and told her they would like to extend their rental for another year. If that was OK, he would drop by and give her a cheque to cover everything. This time Danny insisted on paying half. But Jonah objected and finally they agreed that Danny would pay for the groceries and the gas they used. Danny didn’t object because if there was one thing he had learned about his young friend it was that when he made up his mind that was pretty much it. So they shook on it and sat down to plan their next week’s surfing expedition.

Because they paid cash for everything they did, including gas, service on their cars, food and the rent, they realized that they were living totally off the grid. 

One day, when Jonah had gone into LA to buy some new T-shirts, Danny was sitting on the deck and realized that he had gotten so caught up in the surfing thing that he had been neglecting his story. So he got out his computer and opened it up.  

Danny knew he was not really much of a writer, but he was a voracious reader and did have a high school education. But none of that seemed to matter very much. One of the lessons he had picked up from the reading he had done about some of the writers he liked to read was that if you want to master anything you have to be prepared to do a little or a lot every day. No days off, no vacations. The other thing he learned was that there was no way to teach writing. You could learn about language and grammar, but the skill of writing was simply the direct result of doing it and eventually, to some degree, mastering it.

Danny had managed to chronicle the first part of his story, which basically got him up to his and Jonah’s arrival in and departure from Vegas. So he picked it up from there. He was surprised at how much he was able to recall, even though, at the time, it all felt like a blur.

He didn’t worry about style, just getting the story down. He was smart enough to know that if he got all the information recorded he could then go back and try to, hopefully, add some style to it. That would be the real test. And he felt he was up for it. 

As he started to write out the details, he was convinced there was something there. Something about genuine friendship. Something about two guys of different generations sharing a lot of common ground. And that was when he realized that the better part of writing was the thinking part.

After a few hours of this, he stopped writing, read over what he had done and closed up the computer, satisfied that he was pretty well caught up. He then locked the house and went for a long walk along the beach. He thought about a lot of things, and how his life, not even close to half over if he was lucky, had been lived almost completely outside the boundaries of society. Nobody knew him and he knew hardly anyone, but it never seemed to bother him. He knew Jonah well enough to understand that it was the same for him and he seemed to like it that way. He supposed that living a normal life came with a great deal of obligation, hence the need for work. The thought of actually needing to work kind of made him shudder. He supposed he did have a job. But he had been away from it for a while now and he saw no really need to get back into it right away, just as Jonah didn’t see an immediate need to head back to Vegas and steal money from people with his amazing talent or gift or whatever it was.

They were both, in fact, outlaws, in their own ways. They didn’t belong to any real system. They lived on the outside. Not altogether unlike the outlaws they saw in movies about the old west. Not unlike some of the surfers they had gotten to know a bit, who just seemed to surf all day and hang out all night. They were outlaws too, he supposed, although they could just be rich kids. But even that was a kind of outlaw.

The more he thought about it, the more his thinking started to shape itself into a story in his head.

When he stopped to see where he was, he was so far down the beach he could barely see their house. So he started to walk back, feeling pretty good about this outlaw thing. It was, he reckoned, some sort of theme.

On his way back, he waved casually at the good-looking blonde lady four houses down, who always seemed to be out on her deck with a book or her laptop. And she always waved back.

~ 11 ~

When he got back to the house he noticed something quite different. A young woman was sitting on the steps of the deck with Jonah.

Beside her was an overstuffed extra large backpack. She looked to be in her early twenties and she and Jonah were sharing a joint. She was dressed in blue jeans and a dark blue T-shirt with a sleeveless denim vest. Her hair was short and dark. She looked like the product of a mixed Oriental-Caucasian marriage. But she was quite beautiful with dark brown eyes and slender fingers. On her feet she wore a pair of well-travelled Nikes.

“So who do we have here, Jonah?” Danny asked.

“This is Ellie Dornan.” Jonah said. “Ellie, this is my pal Danny.”

Ellie held out her hand and Danny took it. Her skin felt rougher than it looked. “Pleased to meet you, Danny.” she said.

“Same here.”

“ I went into the city today to get a couple of things. I picked Ellie up at the Highway 10/PCH junction.” Jonah said.

“So where are you heading?” Danny asked her.

“LA.” Ellie replied. “I’ve been on the road for about a month.”

“Where are you from, originally?”

“Kansas City. I just wanted to see the West Coast before, you know, settling down somewhere.”

“Okay.” Danny said.

“Ellie’s gonna stay with us for a couple of days.”

“That’s great. I’m gonna take a shower. Maybe we should all go out for dinner.”

“Sounds like a plan.” Jonah said.

“Nice to meet you, Ellie.” Danny said as he headed up the stairs.

“Same here.” Ellie said. 

Jonah got up and followed Danny into the house. “This isn’t pissin’ you off or anything.”

“No. Not at all.” Danny said. “I always thought it was just a matter of time before you hooked up with someone. This happy bachelor thing is getting pretty old for me too.”

“Alright.” Jonah said. “So maybe we need to find you a woman.”

Danny just laughed. “Don’t think I haven’t been lookin’”, he said and slapped Jonah on the shoulder. “It will all come together in its own time.”

Danny headed up the stairs to have his shower and Jonah went back out to the deck.

“He’s not pissed off or anything is he?” Ellie asked.

“No, no no. As a matter of fact, he’s pretty much the opposite.”

Half an hour later, they headed down Malibu Road to a nice restaurant called Olio, where they all had different kinds of seafood dinners and a nice bottle of white wine.

“So.” Ellie said. “Jonah told me a lot about himself, you know being a poker player and all. But he didn’t say much about you, Danny.”

“Well, let’s just say I make sure that after Jonah plays poker, he actually makes it to the bank.” Danny said.

“But you’ve only been doing that for a while, right?” 

“Yeah. Before that I was living with a woman who was very well off. So I didn’t do much of anything, except take care of her and do some writing.” Danny said with a smile. “But lately, I’ve been getting back into the writing. Maybe a novel. Or a TV treatment. We’re right in the middle of a lot of that here. Who knows, I might get lucky.”

Ellie smiled. “Hmmm. You know I thought about that myself when I was in college. But I did some research and  frankly, I wasn’t prepared to spend ten years it takes to become an ‘overnight sensation.’”.

“So you’re travelling instead. Well, there’s a lot of life experience to be had from that.” But as Jonah listened to her, he could hear a different story from her inner voice. But he didn’t want to force anything out of her that would blow his cover.

“What we really came here for,” Jonah said. “Is the surfing. We’ve been at it for about four months now and are getting ready to try some of the bigger waves down Laguna Beach way.”

“ And you get to live like this just off your poker winnings?” Ellie asked.

“The game is a lot more profitable than you can imagine. Especially if you build a bit of a reputation, and get yourself invited to some of the bigger private tables in Vegas and play in some of the tournaments there and in Reno.” Jonah said.

Then they shifted the conversation to Ellie. She was twenty three and had BA in modern literature from Kansas State. Her folks owned and managed a large farmer’s market in Kansas City, so they were quite well off. 

After she finished college she wanted to travel, but her parents were dead set against it. They felt that the country was way too dangerous for a girl on her own. But she was twenty three and had a little money saved up from working part time for her parents, so she just got on a bus and headed west. 

She started running low by the time she got to Phoenix, and so to conserve what she had, she began hitchhiking. She had lucked out so far, getting picked up by a couple of different families and a pair of women off on a wives only vacation, to San Diego then finally, Jonah, who was actually going in the wrong direction but he seemed so nice that she just hopped in.

“So, you were headed to LA?” Danny asked.

“Yeah. Still am.” 

“Any special reason?”

Ellie was quiet for a while staring down at her food. Finally she said. “I’ve got a sister. She’s about four years older than me and I think something’s happened to her.”

“What do you mean?” Jonah asked gently, because he saw how upset Ellie had suddenly become.

“She left while I was still in college. We kept in touch, mostly by texts and emails. Then one day,…it was like she just dropped off the face of the earth. I messaged her for about a week but heard nothing back.”

“What about your folks? Weren’t they concerned?” Danny asked.

“Gracie, that’s her name, didn’t leave on the best of terms. My parents actually threw her out. She was a heavy weed smoker and really good at attracting the wrong kind of people. One day they’d just had enough. But we were close and she told me that she was going to work her way to LA. She was really good looking and thought she could get an agent and do some acting, commercials, TV, whatever.”

All the time Ellie was talking, Jonah had noticed that her mind had opened up. There was a lot of fear and anxiety there.

“Do you know where she was living in LA?” Jonah asked

“Yeah. She sent me an address. But then she went totally blank. I was heading to LA to see if I could get enough work, you know waitressing or something, to support myself and then look for her when I could.”

“LA’s pretty massive.” Danny said.

“Ellie rubbed her eyes. “Yeah. I came through it from Newport Beach where my last ride let me off. It was kind of discouraging. It took the better part of an hour on the bus to get to Marina del Ray, where Jonah picked me up. I had to save some money for food. I was almost ready to call my folks and have them send me some money for a ticket home. The city was so big. I had no idea of how to even begin. I guess it was kinda dumb. But, I was worried that something might have happened to her.”

“Did you talk to the police about this?”

“No. I mean, I really didn’t have anything to tell them other than that she came to LA and I hadn’t heard from her in almost a month.”

“Look. If you want to go back to Kansas City, I’ll buy you a ticket and take you to the airport.” Jonah said, “But if you want us to help you find your sister or at least try, we’ll be happy to do that too. Maybe we can get some more information for you to give the police, and at least file a missing personas report.” Jonah said looking over at Danny who didn’t say anything for a few seconds, and then it hit him. “Yeah, of course.” he said. But all the while he was thinking, ‘The plot thickens.’

~ 12 ~

When they got back to the house, Jonah showed Ellie the guest room and the smaller bathroom where she could take a shower. She looked bone weary, so Jonah just gave her a peck on the cheek and went downstairs. He grabbed a beer and joined Danny out of the back deck, watching the sun set over the ocean.

“She was pretty beat.” Jonah said. “I put her in the guest room.”

“You think she’ll stick around?” Danny asked

“Too soon to know. I told her she was welcome to stay as long as she likes. If it turns into something, all the better.”

“What’s your read on her?” Danny asked.

“Hard to tell. She seems pretty mixed up. Not flakey mixed up though, like she just isn’t sure she’s going about things in the right way, if that makes any sense.”

“Yeah. There’s a kind of sadness about her. She hides it pretty well though.” Danny said.

“We’ll give her some time. Be nice to have an audience when we hit the bigger waves.”

Danny laughed. “Let’s just hope they don’t hit us back.”

They both had a chuckle about that and then Jonah said, “So what’s this about a book you’re writing?”

Danny wasn’t prepared to tell Jonah what he was really writing about, so he just kinda winged it and hoped that Jonah wouldn’t figure it out, since he had told Danny that his mind was off limits.

“I’ve always been a reader, you know, mostly detective stuff. I found a writer named John Sandford who I really like. He writes about cops in Minneapolis. Mostly about one cop in particular. While he was working his way up in the cop world he started designing games, like role-playing games. He was good at it and made a shitload of money. Eventually, he started writing cop training games to teach cops how to think their way through different situations. But all the time he kept on working as a cop and then as a Federal Marshall. The books are always interesting and really well-plotted. So I thought, maybe I could create a character kinda like that and start building a story around him.”

“Well, it’s not like you don’t have the free time to do it.”

“That’s part of it for sure. I owe most of that to you, my friend.”

“Listen, we’re both getting what we want out of this deal. So just keep plugging away. I think the first thing anybody does…doesn’t matter what it is…it’s always the hardest. But once you’ve got that done, you can learn from it and it gets easier. I don’t know a lot about the writing business, but I’ll bet you that almost every single big time writer had to fail a couple times or more before they caught on.” 

“That’s actually true. I’ve read a few biographies of bestselling novelists and that’s one of the things that’s consistent. Did you ever watch the Harry Potter movies?” Danny asked.

“Oh yeah, I loved them.”

“Well the lady who wrote the books that they’re based on, her name is JK Rowling. She had her first Harry Potter book turned down by about twenty-five different publishers. But when she broke through she ended up becoming one of the richest women in the world.”

“Well there you go.”

“Yeah. There I go. We’ll see what happens. I’m definitely gonna give it a shot.”

“You know you can always publish and market it online.”

Yeah, I thought about that. But it just felt like too much marketing work. I’d much rather see if I could find an agent and go that route.”

“I guess it will all depend on the book.”

Danny laughed. “Yeah and all I’ve got now is about fifty pages of rough draft.”

“Well, at least you started. Just keep going. Who knows where it can take you.”

~ 13 ~

The next morning, they had coffee and bagels and sat out on the deck. Danny told Ellie that he and Jonah would drive her into the city and see if they couldn’t find her sister.  

An hour and a half later, later they were driving down 31st Street heading toward the Manhattan Beach They stopped in front of the last house on the street which was gigantic and quite well-kept by inner city LA standards.

“This is the address.” Ellie said. 

They all got out of the Mustang and crossed the street. They climbed onto the large front porch and rang the doorbell. 

After a few seconds, a man came to the door. He looked to be in his early forties. His hair was long and he was wearing a T-shirt and cut-off jeans. He very much appeared to the the opposite of anyone who would be expected to open the door of this big house. He had the lean, but muscular body of a surfer.

The man looked them up and down and then asked “What’s up?”

“I’m looking for my sister, Gracie Dornan.” Ellie said.

The man’s eyebrows furrowed. Like he was thinking hard. 

“Gracie Dornan.” he said. “Doesn’t ring a bell I’m afraid.”

But that’s not what he was thinking. Not even close, Jonah thought. Then he said. “She would be in her early thirties, came out to California a year ago.” Jonah said. Then he turned to Ellie. “She got out her phone and showed the man a picture.

“Oh, that’s Sandy. Yeah, she was here, up till about maybe five or six weeks ago. Nice girl.”

“Do you know where she is now?” Jonah asked.

The man shook his head. “You know, they come and go.” he said. “She was with one of my roommates. His name is Bishop. He’s out on the water right now. Black board. Hard
to miss. He might be able to tell you where she’s gotten to. But I haven’t seen her for a while now.”

“OK, thanks. Bishop? Any first name?”

“Naa, just Bishop.”

The drove down to the beach and parked. They sat in the car. Danny got out his binoculars. The waves were kind of small but he spotted the guy called Bishop out about four hundred yards, waiting to catch one.

They walked down to the beach and sat down on the sand. It was a beautiful day, but there wasn’t much breeze so the beach was sparsely populated. 

After a few minutes. Bishop caught a small wave and got a fairly decent ride out of it. it was obvious that he was a real deal surfer and he was just out in the small waves fucking around working on technique and tricks. He hit the shallows, jumped off his board and walked toward the place they they were sitting which was close to his small pile of clothes ad a towel  

“Howdy.” Bishop said. He was tallish and lanky like the guy they talked to at the house. He looked to be in his thirties as well.

He grabbed a small towel from his pile of stuff and started drying his hair and face.

Danny got to his feet. He took Ellie’s phone with the picture displayed. “We were just up at your house. We’re looking for a lady named Gracie Dornan. Guy up there says she was with you.”

Bishop took a look at the picture. “She called herself Sandy. No last name.” Bishop said. “She took off, maybe a month ago or thereabouts. Boom…just like that.”

“So you have no idea where she might have gone?” 

“She talked a lot about Hollywood. And she had the look, you know. Country. Fresh. All I know is I got up one morning and she was gone. Nice lady though. I kinda miss her.”

Danny looked down at Jonah who just shrugged.

“OK, well thanks. If she does happen to show up, let her know that her sister Ellie has been looking for her. And that she should give her a call.”

“Sure. Not a problem.”

Bishop picked up his board and his shirt and walked off toward the big house.”

Ellie and Jonah got up and they all walked back to Jonah’s car. 

“Look.” Jonah said to Ellie. “You’re welcome to stay with us for as long as you like. Maybe you could find her on the computer, you know, by emailing her picture to the talent agencies.”

“That’s a good idea. I just don’t want to be any trouble. You guys have already been so nice to me.”

“Trouble?” Jonah said. “No way. We’d love to have you, right Danny?”

“Sure. Be nice to have a female around the house.” Danny said. “Can you cook at all? Because, like,  all we can do is barbecue.”

Ellie laughed. “I’m a farm girl. Of course, I can cook.”

“Good.” Jonah said. Then you’re hired. I’ll pay you, I don’t know, a thousand a week and you’ll be our cook.”

“Are you serious?” Ellie said.

Jonah just looked at her. “I am not poor, Ellie. Of course, I’m serious.”

“Well, alright.”

“And you can do all the investigating you like.” Jonah said.

They got to the car and headed back up the coast.

~ 14 ~

The next morning Danny gave Ellie three hundred dollars and the keys to his van and let her go food shopping. 

Later that day they all sat down to a sumptuous feast of roast beef, roasted potatoes and a spinach salad.

While everything was cooking, Ellie started to make a database of all the talent agencies in the greater Los Angeles area. Once she had that together, a couple days later, she had Danny write an email for her, because she had tried but kept getting to emotional and demanding. Danny’s email was simple and straight to the point and made a very strong appeal. 

Over the next three days, responses started to trickle in. But no one knew who Gracie was, nor could they recognize her from the picture that they attached.

“You have to give it some time, Ellie.” Danny told her. “You have only gotten back a fraction of all the emails you have sent out. Wait a week then send it again. People go on holidays, or they get swamped. It’s gonna take some time. But whatever you do, don’t get discouraged.”

“If nothing happens over the next week or so,” Jonah said. we can hire a private investigator, and see what they can dig up.”

Ellie kept busy around the house to help keep her mind off her worries. She swam in the ocean and she read books on the Kindle that Jonah bought for her with a $500 account. Over the three weeks or so that she had been in the house, she and Jonah had grown quite close. Not quite lovers. But much more than friends. 

In the meantime, Danny had gotten lucky himself. He met the lady who lived four houses up from them one day while he was walking on the beach. Her name was Samantha Eisenberg, who preferred to be called Sam. She was a well-off divorcee, who had gotten the house, her car and a very generous monthly income from her husband who was a highly successful entrepreneur and investor, but with a manic personality. Sam was thirty-two years old, about five-seven with long blonde hair and a face that reminded Danny of a movie star, but he could not figure out which one. 

Their relationship started off casually enough, just saying hi, then walking together on the beach which was something Sam loved to do. She also loved movies and had a small home theatre on the ground level of her house. Like Danny, she was learning to surf and together the two of them drove up the coast looking for places where the breakers were small enough for novices, although Danny had to admit he was curious about how he would handle a bigger wave.

So one day, with Sam watching from the shore at Redondo Beach, he paddled out and sat around for quite a while with several other surfers. He tried to look nonchalant about it, but inside he was scared shitless. He was out much farther than he had ever been, and he wondered how deep the water beneath him was, and if there were any sharks in it. The first wave came along about five minutes later. As it started to build Danny got turned around and paddled like crazy to get on top of it. And then just slightly ahead of it. Then he took a deep breath and got to his feet. Suddenly the wave was towering over his head. he crouched down and turned the board across the wave before it started to curl, like he had seen so many of the more experienced surfers do. When he did that he really felt himself pick up speed and he realized he had hit the wave just perfectly. He rode ahead of the curl and then found himself in the mist but managed to stay on and ride the crashing wave for another couple hundred yards. Sam was watching him with her binoculars. 

Danny got out of the water with a shit-eatin’ grin on his face. He walked over to where Sam was sitting and flopped down.

“You had me worried there for about five seconds when you went into the mist. But you looked totally in control all the way. Good for you, Danny.”

Danny just smiled and shook his head. “I’ve never felt a level of excitement anywhere close to that. Now I can see exactly what makes it so addictive.”

“Just don’t start goin’ after the monsters. One step at a time.” Sam said.

“One step at a time for sure.”

~ 15 ~

Two weeks went by. Ellie checked her computer every day but there was still no word on her sister. She and Jonah had grown closer and were now sleeping together. Danny was spending most of his non surfing free time either writing to get his story up to date or hanging out with Sam. 

After another week went by, it was Jonah’ turn to try a bigger wave. So he and Danny got into the van and head north and headed to Mavericks Beach where they had been having a good run of bigger waves.

These were bigger than anything either of them had tried, but Jonah was confident he could take them on. 

They did about seven rides not counting two early wipeouts while they got the hang of the twelve foot swells. Their riding wasn’t pretty but they figured they could work on style later and that it would be best to just concentrate on staying on their boards. 

Afterward they were sitting by a taco truck having lunch when another guy came and sat down beside them. His handle was Tex, because that’s where he was from. But he was friends with  Bishop, one of the surfers who lived at Manhattan Beach. Introductions were made and Tex sat down at the table with them.

“Bishop told me that a couple of guys and a girl came to see him a few weeks back. Looking for Gracie Dornan.” Tex said.

“Yeah, that’s right.” Danny replied. “You wouldn’t happen to know where she is.”

“Not really. But I met her one time. Sweet lady. Real wholesome looking. After Bishop told me about you guys looking for her, I thought about it for a while. I mean, people don’t just vanish into thin air, you know.”

“So are you sayin’ you might have a way for us to find her?” Jonah asked. And he was thinking, ‘this dude knows something, but it wasn’t clear.’

“I might, yeah.”

“And how would you go about that?” Jonah asked.

“Well in another life in Houston, where I’m from, I worked in a digital intelligence firm.”

“What the hell is that?” Jonah asked

“Kind of like Internet-based spies.”

“Hackers?” Danny asked.

“That’s a matter of interpretation.” Tex said.

“So you think you could find her?” Jonah asked.

“I think I can give it a pretty good shot.”

“What’s the goin’ rate for a pretty good shot?” Jonah asked.

“Ten grand.” Tex said.

Jonah didn’t want to answer right away so he pretended to mull it over. “So what do you need from us?” he said.

“Just her cell phone number, service provider, her full name and a picture.” Tex said.

“It sounds like you’ve done this sort of thing before.” Danny said.

“Yeah. A bunch of times. Mostly parents looking for their runaway kids. Almost everybody is findable these days, there’s no more fuckin’ privacy.”

“I assume it’s a cash only business.” Danny said.

“You assume correctly.” Tex replied.

“Okay.” Jonah said. “I’ll get the money and the info and meet you right here tomorrow afternoon.” 

“Works for me.” Tex said and he got up.

“How did you find us, Tex?”

“It wasn’t hard.” He said as he strolled away

“What do you think?” Jonah asked Danny.

“I think…I don’t know. More importantly, how did you read him?”

“Clean as a bean.” Jonah said. “I think he is who he says he is. And what he says he is.”

~ 16 ~

That evening, after dinner, they were all sitting on the deck. Sam and Danny were playing chess at the table. Jonah and Ellie were sitting on the steps watching the sunset.

“Ellie,” Jonah said. “I want to tell you something but I don’t want you to get all excited about it.”

“That all depends on what you tell me, doesn’t it?”

“Alright. Yeah it does. Danny and I met a guy today, A hacker of sorts, who was a friend of Bishop, the first guy we talked to about your sister.”

Ellie looked over at him. “A hacker.”

“Yeah. He finds people through their phones, and their social media. He’s gonna try and locate her through her phone.”

“Is this guy the real deal?”

“Who know but he wants ten grand and your sister’s phone name, phone number and her date of birth.”

“Ten grand, like ten thousand dollars.”

“Yeah.”

“I don’t have that kind of money, Jonah”

“I know. But I do.”

“That’s a lot of money.”

Jonah took a deep breath. “The bank interest alone on the money I have pays me forty-one thousand a month, That’s almost half a million a year without touching my capital.”

“Wow. I had no idea.”

“Danny has been talking to me about using my money to help people. Well, you and your sister are people. And nothing would make me happier than to help you.”

Ellie said nothing for a while. Then she said. “I had no idea you were that wealthy. I don’t know what to say.”

“You don’t have to say anything. I’m happy to do this.”

“I’ll write out all her information.:”

“Good.” Jonah said. “We’re gonna go see this guy tomorrow. You can come if you want.”

“OK.”

The sun disappeared over the ocean, Danny got up and turned on the back deck light. Another quiet night on the Pacific coast.

~ 17 ~

The next afternoon Danny, Jonah and Ellie drove down to Maverick’s Beach. Tex was waiting for them by the taco stand. He was sipping something in a paper cup. Jonah introduced Ellie to Tex, then he handed Tex an envelope.

“They’s ten grand in there, plus all the info you asked for and a picture of Ellie’s sister, Gracie.”

Tex took the envelope and slipped it into his back pocket. 

“Okay, so give me your phone.” He said to Jonah who handed it over to him. He sent a text to his phone and then gave Jonah back his own phone.

“It’s gonna take a couple days,” Tex said “‘Cause I have to do a fair bit of complex stuff. So what I will try my best to do is locate her phone. If someone had taken her, we can just hope that they didn’t disable the phone till they got where they were going.” Tex said to Ellie. I will also hack into her service provider and trace her calls. That could also give you a lead or two. I’ll call the numbers and play dumb fuck to  make sure someone answers. If they do I can pick up the location of their phone.”

“How do you do all that?” Danny asked. “Or is that a dumb question?”

“It’s not a dumb question at all. But I’m not gonna tell you because on a scale of one to ten, legality wise, it’s about a fifteen. But we do what has to be done, you know.”

Jonah was listening carefully, while Tex was talking. There was a lot of tech stuff that Jonah didn’t understand going on in his head. But there was no fear or anything he could identify as bullshit. The guy seemed to be on the level.”

“Okay,” Jonah said. “So we just hang in and hope you get lucky.”

“That’s about the size of it.” Tex said. “It’s no lead pipe cinch, but it’s light years ahead of hiring an investigator.”

Jonah sensed a good deal of confidence coming from Tex, so he just looked over at Danny and gave him a quick nod.

“Hope to hear some good news.” Jonah said.

“We live in hope, dude. If nothing happens it will not be for lack of trying a whole lot of different tricks.”

They shook hands with Tex and headed back to the van.

“Do you really think he can find her?” Ellie asked Danny as they were walking along the beach.

“It’s hard to say, but my read on him was that he knows what he’s doing. Guys who are bluffing, you know in poker and I guess with just about anything that has to do with money, they always have what we call a ‘tell’.

“What’s that?” Ellie asked.

“It’s like a tic, a gesture, something they do almost unconsciously when they’re bluffing. Tex didn’t have anything like that going on. He’s a high-level digital wizard and pretty confident in his abilities.” 

“Well let’s hope he can help us find her.”

“Like Tex says, we live in hope, my dear.” Jonah said and then he smiled, because, from the confidence he sensed in Tex, he knew just how good the guy really was.

~ 18 ~

There was nothing to do now but wait for Tex to do his magic. 

The ladies, Ellie and Sam had become good friends and spent a lot of time walking along the beach and talking about things. 

The next morning, Danny and Jonah drove down to Maverick’s Beach again and rode the eight to ten-footers until they were pooped. Then they drove home and brought a mess of Tai food with them and some really nice French wines. They all sat out on the deck and watched the sunset, which, for some reason, never seemed to get boring.

After dinner, Danny and Sam left for her place to watch a movie. 

Ellie sat at the table and looked over at Jonah. 

“You’re worried, aren’t you?” Jonah said.

Ellie said nothing for a few seconds and then she asked,  “How is it you seem to know exactly how I’m feeling almost all the time.”

Now it was Jonah’s turn to be silent. “When I told you how much money I had and that I won it playing poker in Las Vegas, what did you think?”

“Well, I thought you must be one hell of a poker player.”

“What I didn’t tell you is that I won all that money in the space of a little over five weeks.”

“So did you cheat?” 

“Not really.”

“Well what then?”

Jonah took a deep breath. “It’s a thing that I have. I can tune into people and hear what they are thinking.”

“Come on.”

“I’ve been doing this since I was about thirteen. When people are saying one thing and thinking another thing, I can hear them both. At first, you know, I thought I was going nuts. But after I kinda got it under control, I got used to it. And since I have always loved poker, well I had to go to Vegas and try it out there.”

“Who else knows about this?” Ellie asked.

“Only Danny, and now you.”

“So when we were talking to Tex yesterday, you could tell that he was on the level.”

“More than that. I could tell he was pretty sure he could crack this.”

Ellie smiled and then shook her head. ‘This is unreal.”

“As you can imagine, if the wrong people found out I could do this, that would not be a good thing. But I really like you Ellie, and if you feel the same, you should know the truth about me.”

“I do feel the same. I’m just worried that you will start reading my mind all the time.”

“No. I’ve learned to tune that out. I don’t do it to Danny either, it’s part of the deal.”

“So what is Danny to you? I mean he’s ten years older than you are.”

“Danny is my bodyguard when I’m playing. He’s got a black belt in TaiQuanDo, and a weapon if he needs it. I was a little worried about going to Vegas and playing on my own. As fate would have it, Danny offered me a ride from New Mexico. I explained why I was going to Vegas and hired him  to protect me. He gets 25% of everything I make, which turned out to be close to four million. After we left Vegas, we stuck together because we both liked the idea of living in a place like this and learning to surf.”

Ellie laughed. “And then you found me.”

“And then I found you. And then we found Tex. And I really believe that Tex is gonna help us find your sister.”

“Jesus, Jonah, I sure hope you’re right.”

“It’s out of our hands at the moment. But if we get a solid lead, even just a person, that’s all it will take.”

“Ellie drained her wineglass. “Let’s go for a walk.”

Jonah and Ellie went for a walk and when they got back they crawled into Jonah’ big giant bed and made love until they were both too tired to do anything but sleep.

~ 19 ~

Two days later, Jonah’s phone rang at one o'clock in the afternoon. Almost 48 hours since they talked to Tex.

“This is Jonah.”

“It’s Tex. I’ve got what I’m pretty sure you’re looking for. I will text it all to you. If it doesn’t pan out, let me know, there’s more shit I can do, all within your budget.”

“Sounds like a plan.”

“I’ll send it right away. You guys should act on it quickly. cause with this kinda shit, you just never know.”

“Roger that. Thanks Tex.”

“All part of the service.” Tex replied and he was gone.

Two minutes later a text came in with directions to the last site the phone was active. It also came with a note.

“I think she’s been taken. Just a gut feel. But the signal was cut by hand, not by travelling out of range. So that’s most likely where she is. I checked out the area. It’s up your way out past Bakersfield. But the houses are spread apart and it’s a short street. Let me know if this pans out. There’s not enough to call the cops, so you’ll have to scope this out yourselves.   Tex.’

Danny was sitting out on the deck writing on his computer when Jonah came out the back door. 

“I heard from Tex. He sent me some coordinates. We gotta go. You should bring your gun and your lock pick tools, just in case.”

Danny closed his computer, grabbed it and went inside the house. He came down five minutes later and he and Jonah left the house. Jonah wrote a note to Ellie who was over at Sam’s house. He left it on the kitchen counter.

Then he and Danny got into the Mustang and headed up into the hills east of Malibu. They drove up to Highway 5 and headed toward Bakersfield. At the split west of Bakersfield, they got onto Highway Five and drove through mile after miles of lush California farmland, heading north and east. Just past the town of Kettleman City, they turned north and headed into a small town called Coalinga. On the far edge of town they noticed the houses were more spread out. They turned down a street called Firestone Avenue. The houses there were all bungalows. A couple had pickups in their driveways. The rest had older sedans. The sun had set about half an hour earlier. The pulled over and stopped.

“Danny who was doing the navigating said. “ Well, we’re here. Like Tex said, there’s only about five houses.

They stopped the car and got out. Danny cocked his pistol and slid it into his jeans at the small of his back. “We’ll just knock on the doors and I’ll leave it to you to tell me when we’ve hit the house.”

“Will do.”

To say that both Danny and Jonah were a little on edge would have been a serious understatement. Neither of them had ever done anything like this before. But Jonah had paid a good chunk of change to get them this far.

They decided to start in the middle of the row of houses. They knocked on the first door, and all they hear was the sound of a very angry dog. But no one came to the door. They walked back out to the street. The only house with a light on that they could see was the house on the left.

An older woman came to the door. Beside her was a quiet but curious German Shepherd.

Danny held up a picture of Gracie and showed it to the woman? “Sorry to bother you, ma’am, but we have reason to believe that this young lady is in this area. We are trying to help her sister find her.”

The lady who appeared to be in her seventies, but still in very good health looked at the picture. “Yeah, I’ve seen her. Not outside, but in a window when I take the dog for a walk. She’s at Ronnie Dumont’s, that’s the last house down the street.”

“Ronnie Dumont? What does he do, ma’am? Do you know?” Danny asked. 

“He’s a manager at one of the fruit farms up Bakersfield way. Office work mostly.”

Danny glanced over at Jonah, who just nodded his head slightly.

“What’s he like, this Ronnie fellow?”

“Well, you know, all the men around here, they’ve got kind of a rough edge. He always said hello whenever I would walk by and he’d be out workin’ on his truck. But, you know, that’s about it. No small talk. Nothin’ like that.”

“Well thank you, Ma’am.”

“This gal…what’s her name?”

“Gracie Dornan. She’s from Kanas. By the way does this Ronnie have a gun that you know of?”

“Damn near everybody around here’s got some kind of rifle. Coyotes, you know. I prefer a powerful dog, like Dexter here.” as she patted the dog on the head.

“Well thank for your help, ma’am.”

“Hope Ronnie isn’t in any trouble.”

“Can’t say for sure, ma’am. We’re just trying help my friend locate her sister . The last signal we could pick up off her phone was in this general area.

“Well, you be careful with Ronnie. He may be an office worker, but he’s got some muscles on him.”

“That’s good advice, ma’am. Thank you.” Danny said. 

They walked back to the car and drove slowly up the street. At the end of the street, where it narrowed to a path through some woods. They turned the car around  turned around. They talked about how they would play this and finally determined they would just knock on the door and let Jonah listen, while Danny explained that they were looking for a missing person and had tracked her phone signal to this general area. After that, they would play it by ear. Hopefully, if he needed to, Danny could scare the shit out him with his gun.

Fifteen seconds later they were knocking on the front door. They heard some noise from inside the house and a door slam. They knocked a second time. Finally a man opened the door. He was about five foot nine and pretty solidly built. He was also balding and wearing glasses. He looked like a computer nerd of some sort.

“Yeah?” he asked.

“Umm, we’re looking for a young woman, who has been unreachable for the past month. We tracked her phone signal to this general area. Just wondering if you have seen this lady?”

Jonah held up a picture of Gracie Dornan. As he did he felt like he’d been whacked upside the head. She was definitely here and this guy was definitely off the charts nuts.

But Dumont calmly shook his head. “Nope, Never seen anyone like her. Good looking chick though.”

“Okay, thanks.” Danny said as Jonah touched his elbow. 

Danny quickly drew his pistol and shoved it up under Dumont’s chin. “Get on your knees.” he said forcefully.

Dumont tried to grab the gun from Danny, but Danny shot his left foot up into his crotch, and he doubled over. Danny then hit him at the top of his shoulder with a chop and two seconds later he was out cold and flat on the floor. 

They stepped over him, dragged him into the house and shut the door.

Jonah then started down the hallway to the end room which he assumed would be the master bedroom The door was locked from the outside with a padlock. 

Danny grabbed a small table lamp, unplugging it and ripping the cord out of it. He then tied the unconscious Dumont’s hands behind him and came down the hall. He got out his lock pick tools and a few seconds later, he had opened the padlock. 

They opened the door to find Gracie Dornan, lying on the bed in a thin nightgown. Her hands were locked behind her with metal handcuffs, which were chained to the bed frame She was also gagged with what looked to be a rolled-up sock.

Jonah quickly got out his phone and took a picture of the scene. Then he undid the gag. “Gracie. My name is Jonah White. This is my friend, Danny Freeman. He’s gonna get these cuffs off you. We’re friends of your sister, Ellie.”

Gracie began to cry, more out of relief than anything.

“Did Dumont hurt you in any way?” Jonah asked

Gracie shook her head. 

“Did he rape you?”

Gracie nodded her head. 

The handcuffs came loose.

“OK, Gracie. I see your suitcase on that chair over there. Grab some clothes and go get dressed. We’re gonna take you back to our house in Malibu where your sister is waiting. I’ll call her before we leave so you know we’re who we say we are.” Danny said.

Gracie just nodded, and got of the bed. She rummaged around in her suitcase, grabbed some clothes and went down the hall to the bathroom to change.

Danny and Jonas dragged the unconscious Dumont down the hall and lifted him up onto the bed. Danny undid the wire around his wrists and fastened the cuffs behind him chaining  him to the bed. He then went into the kitchen and opened and closed a number of drawers until he found some thick plastic ties. He fastened them around Dumont’s feet. Virtually disabling him. 

Gracie came out of the bathroom fully dressed. She tossed her nightgown into the suitcase and closed it up. 

By this time Dumont was conscious.

“We could easily leave you here to die of thirst.” Danny said. “But we’re not monsters. We’ll call the cops tomorrow and let them know you’re here. But if you decide to make a stink about any of this, I’ll send them the picture my friend took of Gracie here all trussed up on the bed. Then we’ll be back to testify against you, and that will be the end of you. Are we clear on that?”

Dumont nodded. He was scared shitless.

Danny turned to Gracie and asked. “Anything you want to do before we leave?”

Gracie had quickly regained her composure. She opened the closet and found a thick leather belt hanging from a tie rack on the inside. She took the belt and folded it in half. She walked over, wound up and slashed Dumont across the face as hard as she could. He literally howled from the pain of it. blood started seeping from his nose and one of his eyes swelled shut.

Gracie calmly walked back to the closet and hung the belt  back up. Danny grabbed her suitcase and the three of them left the house. On the way to the car, Jonah called Ellie and handed Gracie the phone.

~ Epilogue ~

The next day, Jonah drove to his local mall and bought a burner phone with a thirty-minute card. He called the Bakersfield police department and gave them Dumont’s address. He told them that Dumont had abducted a young woman and had been keeping her captive for about a month. And no, the woman did not want to press charges. And no, he did not want to leave his name. Jonah disconnected, then took the phone apart and trashed it. 

With his own phone, Jonah called Tex and told him that everything had worked out fine. He grabbed a coffee at Starbucks and sat at one of the tables outside the restaurant and thought about how gratifying this experience had been. 

Ellie and Gracie hung out together for the next four days until Gracie was more or less back to normal. They then used the talent agent database that Ellie had created to start calling around to arrange interviews for Gracie.

Jonah paid for a professional photographer to do head shots for Gracie and rented them a car so they could get around to interviews. Since Danny was spending his nights with Sam, Gracie and Ellie spent their nights with Jonah. Gracie slept in the spare bedroom and she slept a lot. 

Four weeks later, Gracie had made a deal with a talent agency that did a lot of business with streaming video production companies. Two weeks after that, Gracie auditioned for and got a regular part in a pilot series based on the writings of John Sandford, who wrote about cops in Minnesota. The mini-series she was going to work on had a four-month shooting schedule and a two-month post period for which she would be paid in case any re-shooting was required. If it was a success, it could turn into a whole lot more work for her. Plus this was excellent exposure because it would be a high-end production. This, of course, would require her to live in Minneapolis for the duration of the production. So she, along with three other actors, arranged to rent a house there and off she went.

Ellie was sad to see her go. But she had heard a lot about Minnesota winters and wanted nothing to do with that. Besides which, her relationship with Jonah had deepened and she was perfectly happy to be with him. She even started surfing, because, well, it was California after all.

Jonah and Danny took another trip to Vegas about a year later. Between private games and tournaments in Vegas and Reno, Jonah cleared another eighteen million, four and a half million of which went to Danny.

Danny changed the direction of his novel, to carefully eliminate Jonah’s special talent, and altered it to being able to read people by their ‘tells’ like a good poker player would do. He also found that it gave the book more of an intuitive crime-solving methodology which would make it more main stream marketable.

About seven months later, Danny had found an agent and the agent who had gotten serious interest from three west coast production companies, all of which were also interested making it a mini-series. 

 This was fine with Danny because what he was hoping was to stay way behind the scenes. Once the deal was made, Danny went to work on a series of seven TV-hour story outlines, and gave them to the three-person writer/director/producer team at a company called The Left Coast which was the company Danny’s agent, a lady named Millie Roman, recommended. When Danny asked about the name, they told him they were all Canadians and that’s what they called any place from British Columbia in Canada to the Mexican border.

Danny and Jonah put their heads together with Tex and created a loose enterprise which was a private investigation firm. It worked on an ad hoc basis, with Tex doing the online searching and finding business, Jonah figuring out exactly what was going on and Danny doing the heavy lifting of getting it done.

Jonah continued to lease the house he and Ellie were living in, because, as he and Danny talked it through, the last thing they wanted was for any major financial system to be hyper-aware of them, and a large home purchase and property tax, was definitely one of those systems. Jonah even had Tex install his own server, which kept him at arm’s length from the information hungry search engines,

Danny moved in with Sam, who quickly got her surfing up to his level. So they spent a lot of time up and down the coast, as did Jonah and Ellie.

And, once a year, they all flew to Hawaii to watch the big dogs ride waves that they could only dream about riding. All of which Jonah financed with one night in one of the local casinos in Honolulu.

 FIN