Long Gone

By Thomas Bryant

Long Gone is a fast-paced thrilling tale of love, romance, corruption and murder as seen through the eyes of Sammy Page, who was turned out to make fast money by a desperate mother at the age of 10 years old and sending him hopscotching down a crooked path of a life of crime.

He meets Marla Herrera during late-night emergency surgery and immediately pursues the single mom, who is a long, curvy Spanish American nurse who can't resist the smooth talking, hard bodied villain with bedroom eyes and devilish moves. After a few years of marriage he allows himself to get close to her daughter, Anita, who begins to idolize him like a storybook hero, but begins to question what he does when he's away or how he makes a living.

Page actually goes so far as to see himself as the father that he never had and finally finding the family life that he has always wanted when he is identified on a surveillance tape where a theft had occurred and a man and wife had been found brutally murdered.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Thomas Bryant
• Release date: Oct 10, 2011
• ISBN: 9781937387990

Thomas Bryant

Thomas Bryant received his education at Cal Baptist University in Riverside, CA. While studying political science, he began a love affair with books and discovered a passion for writing. Coming from humble beginnings with economic demands, he took an internship in the service industry as a heavy-duty diesel mechanic, which left him little time for books or writing. He sought challenges, including baseball, football and wrestling as a young man and loved speed on the water in a flat bottom race boat called BORN to be WILD. Two weeks before he entered Arizona Bail Enforcement Academy to become a licensed Bounty Hunter, he was involved in a near fatal crash. Disabled and facing his toughest challenge, he returned to his first love of writing and found a whole new world in print and writing suspense thrillers. He lives in the Ozarks of Missouri.

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Chapter 2

The Boys and Me

My name is Sammy Page, but I’m occasionally referred to as Cowboy because my daddy's Texas accent rubbed off on me, even though I was born in Southern California. I' m 32 years old, but on nights like these I feel 62. I've been making deliveries like this since before I was old enough to drive.

Clarence Parker, a friend of my dad's, talked with a slow, southern drawl and almost always cleared his throat before he began to speak. He was long, lean and habitually twisted the ends of his tapered mustache. I had seen him, but I never really got to know him until after my father left when I was nine years old. We had no place to live, so he let us move into his tiny little two room rundown shack on the back of his property, rent free. The street was Stichman in Baldwin Park, California, but we had no address and all the utilities piggybacked off the front house. Most didn't even know it was there and with my mother and five of us kids free was all we could afford.  Well, it wasn't totally free, nothing ever is.

Clarence, who lived in the front house with his wife and his son Karl, was interested in my oldest sister Cheryl, who was only 16 years old and he wanted to continue building cars on the rear property with Torch and Duffy, which is just another way of saying chop shop. Because of my mother's desperation for money, it also became an after school and weekend job for me, until it fazed school out altogether. Whatever Clarence wanted me to do, that's what I did. He treated me like a man when I was just a boy. I guess some might not realize how important that is, unless they have been raised up in a house with five women.

I remember the first time I heard the two thundering V-twins as they roared down Pacific Avenue long before they came down Stichman and up the driveway to go to work. Torch kicked back with his long lean legs propped on the pegs of a chopped and raked bright purple chromed out pan head. Duffy rode beside him on a full dressed classic red 41 knuckle with a single seat to hold his rather prominent posterior. Neither ever wore a helmet, just dark black shades.

I would run to get the big white gates open for them so they could idle into the backyard, both motors loping as if they were turning just fast enough to stay running. They are such awesome machines. I loved watching them as they cut the engines and rolled to a stop, swinging out the long chrome kick stands.

They always flew their colors in those days. Vagos was on a patch under their emblem. Duffy said it was some kind of Norris God and of course Torch clarified that the God on the emblem was Loki and that Loki would assist the other gods and sometimes caused trouble for them. He was the god of mischief, he explained in detail.

Torch had long blonde hair, tied in a pony tail hanging out from under a welder’s cap. Today it’s gone to a silver grey but it’s still under the cap. It might be the same one. He still has the smirky smile and you can never miss his unmistakable cackle when he laughs. He’s kind of a Beatnik intellectual, a real deep thinker with thoughts and philosophies that range from politics to psychology to women, none of which he knows anything about, mind you, but that never stops him from rattling on.

When he’s stoned, which is all the time, he is exceptionally profound and has the answers to all the ill in the world. Duffy passes him a joint first thing in the morning before they start work and the shit slinging starts and doesn't stop all day. Occasionally they'd try to bring me into it, by siding with one or the other. I avoided that at all cost. I might've been young but I wasn't no dummy. Torch always tries to come off as a wise philosopher. Duffy and Clarence would usually just chuckle at him. You are so full of shit, Duffy would say, and Torch usually calmly replies, Well Duff, that may very well be, but you just sit back and watch it happen fat man. They rag on each other all day long and in the end Duffy proclaims, It doesn't matter what I say, he always gets me in the end with the fat man jokes,

During a workday, they'd send me back and forth between Torch's cutting and welding and Duffy's masking and painting. Bring me a tool, roll those tanks over here. Help me with this front end. Hold the other end of this bolt. Grab the other end of this. Bring me a wrench. Let me show you how to do this, let me show you how to do that. We worked hard all day long, while Clarence was usually out cruisin the streets trying to find the cars or trucks to fill the orders. He would usually wake me up in the middle of the night to take him to go get them.

I was the envy of all my friends when he let me cruise his 1957 Bel Air Chevrolet. I became a man in the back seat of that very same car with a hot little Mexican gal who was the waitress at the little drive-in restaurant around the corner from my house. He was like a father and so he taught me what he thought I needed to know to be a man and to survive in the world the way he perceived it to be. I adopted his views, philosophies and lifestyle. He called it life in the fast lane, and we ran it wide open.

He demanded I stay in excellent shape at all times to be physically and mentally sharp to deal with whatever might happen just around the corner.  We jogged every morning regardless of how late we were out the night before and pumped weights three or four times a week. We boxed or I should say, he kicked my ass, until I toughened up to defend myself. I felt invincible and disciplined to take on any situation.  It took a lot of energy to run the way we were running and we were gettin around pretty damn good.

Clarence used to sneak back to our house to be with my sister. He was 31. I’m not sure why my mother ever went along with that, but I am sure money had something to do with it.  There would have been nights that we would have gone to bed hungry if it hadn’t been for Clarence.

It wasn’t long before Karl’s mother took off and the little toe head with the Charlie Brown shaped head and cute dimples spent his time in the back yard with us. He’d stand in his play pen sucking on a bottle, playing with his trucks just a few feet away from cars being dismantled. The sparks from the torch would fly as the intense flame ripped through metal. Many times I manned the spray bottle to put out small fires that may spring up in the surrounding weeds. It was like 4th of July every day to Karl. He would be holding his bottle with the nipple between his two teeth and running back and forth, bouncing off the sides of his pen in a droopy diaper, until I surprised him by squirting him down with the spray bottle. He would drop the bottle, with his mouth open wide as he giggled and pretended he was really shot, while he lay on the padded floor of the playpen. He was such a blast. I never thought that, that little guy would end up being a great big pain in the ass and the best partner I’ve ever had.

Mark Stephens is my best friend. We met at Central Elementary Schools admissions office. He was on his way in to see the principle and I was on my way out to go to class on my first day of school in Baldwin Park. We only got to speak for a few minutes, but I could tell he was just enough of a shit stirrer, that we would be pals or as Torch and Duffy would say, partners. He has light brown skin, and always wore a pick in his neat kinky fro. Soon after, he showed up in my homeroom rubbing his butt. As it turns out, he was sitting right at the desk next to mine.

Ron Gorby, who was a chubby white kid, although he referred to himself as husky, always wore striped shirts that were too short and his belly would hang out from underneath, set in front of me and Billy Miner, a wiry looking kid with big ears set at the desk just behind. We became the Four Musketeers in the poorest section of Baldwin Park, a little Barrio suburb of Los Angeles that seemed to have been forgotten by any sort of urban renewal. The streets were lined with burned out street lamps, cars on blocks and leaning mail boxes. A string of shopping carts along the side of the cracked and pot holed asphalt roads was a sign you were in our hood. Any vacant wall space on buildings were canvas for graffiti, where the different gangs would stake their territory and try to strike fear in the hearts of the law abiding residents, prompting them to install bars over the windows and security screens on the doors. Our neighborhood looked like a collection of prisons, only they were designed to keep people out.

Mark was known as Boom Boom, for his infatuation with cherry bombs. He would slide short sections of cigarettes over the fuse of the firecracker and place them all around the neighborhood. We'd sit in the oak tree in my backyard, with hot cars below us in different stages of undress, smoking pot and laughing hysterically, listening to them exploding with an occasional Oh Shit! Or a loud Scream! Old lady Simpson next door would holler out the window over the sound of her television, "Boom Boom, you keep that shit up, and I'm going to tan your hide.

We used to spend a lot of weekends over at Gorby’s house playing cards and acting like high rollers as Ron dealt cards in his transparent green dealer’s visor while he smoked cigarettes. He thought he was slick blowing the smoke out the open bedroom window. I’ll never forget the time he had a cigarette in his mouth as he cut the cards. He said, Better watch out boys, I’m feeling lucky tonight, and then blew smoke out through the screen. When the smoke cleared his dad was standing there coughing in the flower bed. He turned ghost white as he laid out his cards and said, oh Shit, I fold, as his dad ripped the screen off and yanked him through the open hole and beat his ass all the way into the house, hollering at his mother. Now, you don’t believe me, look at that and smell his breath.  We just fell apart. Boom Boom was howling while he mimicked Gorby. Better watch out boys, I’m feeling lucky tonight. He had the best sense of humor of anyone I have ever known, there is nothing dry about it, if it’s funny, he is roaring and out of control. Today, he's detective Mark Stevens San Dimas PD. It's only a few miles from Baldwin Park but, when you look at the large homes, manicured landscaping and clean streets, you realize it's a long way from the hood.

Gorby’s mother always made him wear a flat top hair cut because she loved military men and he hated it when everyone ran their hand across his flat head. In the neighborhood he was known as Dookie.  We used to go down and play football on the big grass area in front of the neighborhood church.  Ron dove for a pass and he landed in a big pile of dog shit. It had to have been a St. Bernard. We were all just stumbling around laughing at him. I thought we were going to have to resuscitate Boom, who could not catch his breath.  Just as he was finding some control, Billy said, c’mon Dookie, go clean up, you stink,  and Boom was back on the ground roaring and every time he started to catch his breath, he would yell out Dookie! And loose it all over again. It stuck.He was Dookie the dope dealer.  Hey that was the 60’s everybody did some kind of drug. He started us out by getting weed, which made him good friends with Torch and Duffy, who to this day, smoke pot like a nicotine addict smokes cigarettes.

Every time Dookie would get a new shipment of weed, it was the latest greatest thing. It was, The Kind, was his calling card and every new batch, according to him, just blew the other stuff away. He was a good salesman cause we all bought it or maybe it was just convenient cause he delivered. We went through the same thing with him as he supplied, The Kind, cocaine in the early 70’s, so it was rather ironic that Dookie went to the Police Academy and after putting in his time on the force and school, he became a detective in narcotics and eventually Mark Stevens saw to it that he was promoted to Robbery Homicide. Mark said homicide gets all the real cases because they deal with human life and spare no expense to get the perpetrator. Every other division is considered to be just writing reports and logging evidence with no real resources devoted to investigation.

Billy Miner found his wife in the third grade. Eva Lynn was one of the prettiest girls at Central Elementary School. Billy used to strap a mirror on his foot and walk around at recess talking with the little girls, wearing skirts or dresses, and in those days that was most of them. Eva was very fidgety and swayed back and forth, jumping, gyrating and singing while Billy was trying to catch up with her, holding her still so he could look down and take a peek. Liz Blackburn, a notorious boogie eater, whispered in her ear and before Billy could move, Eva socked him in the eye. That was just the beginning. She held him by the collar of his shirt and pummeled him over and over, pulling his shirt up over his head and kicking him in the ass until he went down. I almost pissed my pants from laughing so hard. That cured him of that little enterprise.

She was certain he had seen her underwear and claimed that this some how committed him and twenty years later and six kids, they are still together.  He, like the other 2 Musketeers, joined the Academy and after a brief stint with the Vice Squad of all places, Mark Stevens and Ron Gorby paved the way and pulled some strings to bring in the third Musketeer into Robbery Homicide. I am more then ever the black sheep of our little family. But, nevertheless they can't resist a bargain, so we still have our dealings and I'm not only accepted, I'm revered.

Clarence taught me to read neighborhoods and function within them in a way to attract as little attention as possible. I learned everything from picking pad locks to safe cracking and of course bypassing alarm systems and stealing cars, trucks, tractors, anything on wheels. This was my education and on the job training. If there was a degree for stealing well then, I was a prodigy with a PHD in criminal behavior, while the other Musketeers were still carrying Roy Roger’s lunch boxes, riding skate boards and popping zits on their face.

It came naturally and I went from helping in the backyard and steering shells of cars that were being towed to the scrap metal yard to be crushed, to driving for Clarence. And finally, like scratching an insatiable itch, I had to start doing them myself. It was a rush, but it wasn't enough, I had to start going bigger and better and I moved my mother and my sisters out of that shack. It wasn't any too soon. Boom Boom, to welcome the new tenants, let off a string of cherry bombs near the house and the blast was so devastating, I think there are pieces that haven't landed yet.

The arson investigators determined that the explosion was caused by a gas leak under the house. None of us, but Clarence knew that the little shack had been condemned by the city and deemed inhabitable. Oh, we knew it was inhabitable all right, we lived in it. We just didn't know Baldwin Park even knew it was there. So, Clarence was charged with two counts of involuntary manslaughter for the little old man and lady who were killed in the blast. We bailed him out and he took flight, leaving Karl award of the state and me in charge. I felt like I had lost another father and now Torch and Duffy looked to me to keep the ball rolling.  He was such an influence in my life and I would hear his voice in my ear as to what he thought I should do. I never hesitated, instead I kept my foot on the gas and moved our backyard operation to a shop and we began doing high volumes. I just seemed to grow up in that shop going through driver after driver while Torch and Duffy were doing tear downs and delivering drive trains, suspensions and interior packages during the day.

Karl couldn't stay out of trouble, he ran away from every foster home they put him in. I didn't know you could inherit a criminal prowess, but he would escape from juvenile detention centers, slip cuffs and made his way out of locked squad cars, until he became of age. After bailing him out over and over again as an adult, I became satisfied he wasn’t going along with the do as I say, not as I do program, so I brought him in to work with us. If he was going to screw up, I at least wanted to teach him the right way to do it. Once Karl came in, he was like the final piece to our puzzle and we really started clicking.

Chapter 3

Trouble on the Home Front

It got late in a hurry after dropping the car off and getting back to the shop, to get my truck. Torch and Duffy had already been working for hours. The sparks were flying as Torch was finishing the final cuts on a frame and Duffy was in the spray booth laying down some paint on a change over to be delivered. Karl made out like a bandit with the souvenir in the leather case.  This guy must be a photographer, cause there's about 3,000 dollars worth of camera equipment in it.   Good for him, he put in some extra work on this one and he’ll be delivering parts all day with no sleep, so he’s working for it. Trust me, I'd rather be right there with him or getting my hair singed with Torch, snorting bondo dust and paint with Duffy compared to the hornet’s nest I’m fixin to walk into.

It’s already 9:30 and Marla will be home and waiting. She’ll be madder than a wet hen about me being out all night. She’s a nurse at Intercommunity Hospital and works the eleven to seven shift in the emergency ward and I usually beat her home, so I can fudge a little on the time. If it takes us a little longer, she is none the wiser.

The nature of her job is stressful enough. Assisting in emergency surgeries and making patients comfortable in the face of their own mortality while she wades in their blood is the closest thing to an Angel as we'll see on Earth. I’m in complete awe of what she does and who she is. I guess her biggest flaw is that she’s in love with me.

Acute Appendicitis brought us together as I was awakened in the middle of the night with a fever as I barfed up lunch and dinner.  My stomach hurt so bad I thought I was gonna die. Still, I couldn’t stop staring at her. Those eyes, I’d never seen that color before, except maybe the early morning skies over the Colorado River, where we would launch the race boat and wake up the people sleeping on the bank as we buzzed the camps disturbing the water that was still like glass.

I’ll never forget the first words she said to me. Her voice was angelic as if stringed harps accompanied every syllable as she spoke.  She stood there next to the gurney on two lusciously long legs as she rapidly squeezed air into a blood pressure cuff.  She said, Quit acting like a big pussy. You’ll live. That’s all it took.  It was love at first sight.  I had to tell her how I felt.  She said, "Oh I get that all the time now shhh, while I listen for your pulse, but don’t worry the Demerol will wear off in a few hours. Five years later, it still hasn't worn off. I still see her with the same eyes I did then.

As I turn into our neighborhood in this morning's light, It’s so still and calm I love this time of day as the sun just begins to peek over roof tops and pillowy white clouds hang in the clear blue sky. The houses are single story ranch style, older homes with wide front porches, large front lawns, surrounded by short split rail fences and long pavered driveways rolling up to detached 3 car garages. It’s nice to come home and look at manicured lawns and clean weed free driveways. 

Marla sits and drinks her coffee. Sammy hadn't come home yet. He was usually here before her and she would shower and quickly slip into bed next to him, so it was easy to push out of her mind the dangers of his job as she wrapped around him under the covers. 

He would usually wake and ask her how her night went and help her unwind while she talks about her early morning shift in the ER.  She loves that he's always so interested in what she does and listens while she explains the, stressful, events that had gone on in the hospital.

He's never once discussed or complained about the pressures of what he does, but lately she's been able to see it in him. Subtle changes in his personality or a far-off look in his eyes. Sammy jokes everything off or looks for solutions rather than dwelling in the problems, so he is very difficult to read, even though, with the business he's in, his stress levels have to skyrocket at times.

Because of her experience and training in the medical field, she knows that this kind of stress over long periods of time can lead to serious physical problems, but he would never let her in. He would never want to burden her with his heavy load and the last thing he wants is for her to worry about him when he's away and when they're together he worships her.

Her color is caramel mixed with honey, pored over her shapely tight frame. She still has the body she had to play center on her high school basketball team, where she was affectionately referred to as Sugar for her sweet jump shot and loveable demeanor off the court.

She thought she had adjusted well to their lifestyle, but, when she got off work and he still wasn’t home it all comes crashing down on her.  

‘What if he doesn’t come home?’ She fears as she polishes the appliances in the kitchen, trying to stay busy as she waits to get a glimpse of him. ‘What if he never comes home again and yesterday was the last time I will have ever see him? What if the love of my life has just slipped out of my life forever? What if he has touched me for the last time? What if we have made love for the last time?’

She begins to vigorously scrub countertops and wax cabinets as her mind races and she panics, knowing her daughter will be up soon, ‘Oh my God! What will I tell Anita? She'll be devastated.  She was so young when her real dad left, she never knew him, but Sam I am is Papa. She thinks the sun rises and sets with that man.’

She marches back and forth to the big picture window in the living room every time she hears an engine or a car door as she tries to calm herself with enjoyable memories of her family having the time of their lives.

‘Anita watches him when he's not looking, how happy she is, all smiles, when they're playing together, like two kids, whether it's playing catch, bowling or any sport. They are both so competitive they can make a competition out of anything. Who can eat the most tacos or pizza? They can make a game at just watching TV, anything to just be involved with each other and no matter how busy he gets, he’s never missed any of her high school softball ball games.

She imagines him being targeted by an angry cop who gets trigger-happy and drops the hammer, leaving their lives mortally wounded and dying in the street as she waits on the call that he's never coming home. Her fear and stress red line and the tears fall as his clean white pickup truck pulls up in the driveway and her fears turn to anger.

Marla’s looking out the big picture window as I pull in the driveway.  She quickly walks away when she sees me. This is not good. I toss my new hat in first, to kind of test the waters before I actually show her a live target. It looks good so far, no bombs, no explosions or gunfire, so I go inside.  I leave my shades on like maybe she won't recognize me. 

She stomps through the living room like she's trying to crush cans, in scrubs. Her hair is still wet from the shower. You’re the only woman I’ve ever seen that is smokin in drab green, I said, trying to soften her up.  This did not have the effect that I was hoping for. She stops, her shoulders drop, shaking her head with her eyes rolled up in total disgust. I really think this woman is mean enough right now to hunt bear with a switch. Mercifully, she turns and disappears down the hall.  It’s worse then I thought. With hard wood floors, I can hear her throughout the house and she’s pretty much all over the place. She’s usually light on her feet, but this morning there's a little anger in her step. I sneak through the entryway past the living room and dining room to the back of the house, into the family room and kitchen.  I grab a beer from the fridge twist the top off, flip it in the trash and kick back on the couch, that separates the two rooms, kick off my shoes and prop my feet up on the table as I tip back the bottle. I can't help but wince, like I'm waiting for a bomb to explode, as I hear her coming back down the hall.

Get your feet off the table, she says, never slowing down as she goes to the kitchen and bangs cupboards and slams drawers, before stomping back into the family room. Her eye balls burn right through me before glancing down to my feet. A not so subtle reminder as I quickly pull my feet off the table. Hey, you're not the boss of me. I said, playfully, but she ain't got no sense of humor this mornin.

She grabs her keys off the coffee table and takes a quick sip off her coffee.

Where are you going, I ask, as I start to put my feet back on the table unconsciously, drawing a harsh reminding stare, snapping my feet back on the floor. 

Don’t worry about it, she says, as her Spanish accent thickens and her Latin tongue begins to roll.  I am gonna take off.  You won’t know where I’m going or when I’ll be back or if I’m coming back.  Then you can sit by that frickin teléfono que apesta and wait for a phone call that isn’t coming, Sammy

She said my name, like it's something she scraped off the back of her shoe.

Ok, I got that one, I said jokingly, trying to lighten her mood.

She snaps back obviously not amused, This isn’t funny Sammy.

Again, my name comes out like a hiss from a snake or claws on a cat. I don’t think the light hearted approach is working, so in desperation, I confess, as I slide to the very edge of the couch, using pleading hands and my best, please forgive me face as I run it down. Ok I meant to call, but I got in a hurry and had no time, then we ran out of gas, had to take a cab, it broke down. We had to take a bus, got on the wrong one. When we finally got to the gas station, it was closed. My God, Marla, it was just one thing after another.

She stands there with her arms folded, shaking her head. Sammy, you are so full of shit, she says, and you’re not funny either, smart guy. I just look at her in disbelief. Well then I got nothin, I said. Come on Marla, it was a little funny.

She walks in the kitchen to warm up her coffee and comes back in and sits down on the other end of the couch. She takes a more calm and controlled tone, as she sits the cup down on a coaster on the coffee table. Wasn’t it you who said that only bad things happen when you’re out after 2:00 in the morning? Those are your words.

I don't like the way this is going right off the bat, yeah but…

.When you’re out this late, you’re either playing around, or you're fuckin up? She says. She nods at me, like this is something that I should already know. God I love it when you talk dirty to me. She sits back on the couch rolls her eyes and shakes her head to let me know that one more time my attempt at humor has gone down in flames.

Remember Sammy, 'nobody's out after two o'clock in the morning except cops and crooks?' Which one are you, funny man? We'll see how funny it is when they're slamming the door on your ass.  And don’t tell me that you had to meet someone else’s deadline. 'How does this woman know this shit?' They’ll run you into the ground if you let them.            

She is brutal and every time I open my big mouth, I just dig myself in deeper and deeper, so I quit while I'm behind.

The room is quiet except for the sound of the coffee pot and Marla’s little green Conjure Parrot, who seems to be giving me attitude and chirping at my demise. She stands on her perch in a black floor length round cage. Her name is Molly, but we just call her lilbit. She squawks when I stick my tongue out at her on my way to the fridge to grab another beer.

The kitchen is spotless. I can almost see myself in the stainless steel appliances. When Marla is upset she cleans incessantly.  I thought of the operating rooms where she assists Doctors and how this room would compare to those; only I think she plans on cutting my heart out here. 

We bought this house together three years ago.  When I first showed it to her, she