“Like, people eat with their eyes first, okay?” Earl took a sharp drag off his Newport and shook his head. “Like, literally, you can’t just melt a slice of American cheese over an omelet and serve that shit to a customer, okay?”

Hitch shrugged. “I just did.”

Terrence snorted. “Yeah ya did, bro.”

“Well, then like, you shouldn’t do that, okay?”

Hitch just shrugged again. “They are swine, sucking the swill at the bottom of my life, Earl.”

“Listen to me, they’re customers, okay? Like, George trusts us to serve them when they come in the door, alright?”

“They’re pigs, Earl. This damn town is lousy with gun-toting half-wits, and you want me to treat them all like prized potbellies for some reason?” He flipped his phone case closed and tossed his butt in the ash can. “Any one of them would probably shoot you for eating a candy bar.”

Terrence offered him the joint. “Bro, you never even did any time, what you got against cops in the first place?”

Hitch took a puff. “I don’t like my tax dollars going to shooting brown people,” he grunted through a wisp of smoke. “Here, or abroad.” He exhaled the last bit of smoke and took another puff as the dishwasher stepped out the back door.

“Ay, Paco. No fumas este mierde.”

Hitch nodded, glanced down at the joint, and shrugged. “¿Todo bien, Octavio?”

The dishwasher sighed. “La machina no sirve.”

“Bueno,” Hitch stood and stretched out. “Enseña me.”

The aces watched as the sheriff eased his cruiser around the back of the Spoon.

“Oh good, here comes our hero.” Hitch glanced down at the better half of the joint and offered it to Earl.

“Fuck.” Earl said.

“Right?”

“Alright, well, like—" he stood back, “just—”

Hitch flicked the cherry off the end of the joint and tucked it behind his ear as he walked towards the back door.

“¿Que pasa?” Octavio asked, watching the police car warily.

“Esse país esta infestada con federales. Tenemos que ir antes que estamos infectada.”

“Ay, Paco. No bromas.”

The sheriff eased his cruiser into the spot right behind the back door and dropped it into park as Hitch rolled back inside.

Terrence stood up and adjusted his apron, his busted baby face taking on a grim hang-doggedness. “This can’t be good.”

“Like, we’re on bail, right?” Earl pushed his sleeves up. “Ashley said it was handled, okay?”

“Bro, what does that even mean?”

“She said: ‘Victor has been taken care of.’ Like, he’s not going to press charges, alright?”

“But what does that mean?”

“It means he’s been taken care of, okay?”

“Bro—"

“Afternoon, gentlemen,” Etherton called as he stepped from the cruiser.

“What’s up, Sheriff?” Earl offered amicably. “You just by for lunch?”

Etherton shook his head. “I sure wish I had time, but I’m afraid I’m here on business this time.”

Terrence groaned. “It was self-defense, bro! They came here looking for a fight,” he pleaded.

Earl nodded his agreement. “Like, we didn’t start no shit, okay?”

“Relax.” The sheriff leaned back, worried that he’d already spooked them both. “It’s about Victor.”

Terrence looked worried. “How is he? Is he okay?”

“Well, ya know guys, that’s the thing,” He ran his fingers through his hair unconsciously and scratched the back of his head. “Victor’s kind of gone missing, and nobody knows where he got off to.”

Terrence glanced over at Earl, looking worried again.

Earl just shrugged. “Like, we been here since we got out, okay? We been super busy, ya know?”

“Yeah, yeah, I can imagine. I just wondered if maybe you heard anything.”

Terrence looked ready to confess to just about anything, but Earl just shook his head. “Like Sheriff, we’d like to help ya and all, but like, we just been here trying to keep up, alright?” He reached for his pack of cigarettes like he was just about to light one but glanced into the pack. “Ya know, we should probably get back in there,” he said.

“We’re really grateful for everything, though,” Terrence said. “Bringing us food and everything. We got your lunch the next time you’re in.”

The sheriff nodded appreciatively. “George hasn’t charged me since the town hired me.”

“If there’s ever anything we can do for you…” Terrence offered.

Earl scowled at his associate.

“Well,” Etherton screwed his face up. “There is one more thing.” He scratched the back of his head. “Probably ain’t even worth asking,” the sheriff hitched his belt up, “but you guys haven’t heard anything about the recent exhaust thefts, have you?”

Earl chuckled. “Oh, like, we heard ‘em alright.” He elbowed Terrence.

“Yeah, we heard ‘em.” Terrence smiled reluctantly and glared at Earl.

“What? Like everybody heard ‘em.” He laughed. “I mean, the whole damn state can hear ‘em now.”

“Alright, alright.” The sheriff leaned back against the hood of the car and squinted up at the sun, trying to ignore the joke. “Well, those guys are threatening to tear the town apart trying to find their missing mufflers, and I just thought I’d see if you guys might know something.”

“Bro, it’s not the muffler, it’s just the catalytic converter they steal.”

Earl elbowed Terrence again.

“Uh, Sheriff, they steal the—”

“He knows it ain’t the mufflers, alright?”

Etherton nodded. “Just, you know, if you happen to hear anything, alright?”

“Will do, Sheriff.” Earl nodded professionally as he adjusted his apron and ducked back into the kitchen.

“I can ask around.” Terrence offered nervously.

The sheriff didn’t want them in any trouble on account of the invading forces, but they were better deputies than Nutsy and Trigger for any useful information. If he was going to have to do some actual police work, he needed more than a pair of traffic ticket writing Phys Ed majors to do the detective work. He needed eyes and ears in the town, keeping track of the little fires for him. He wasn’t deputizing, just delegating.

The sleight Latino kid in the dirty apron remained, watching Etherton with a steadfast, catlike quality. He chewed at his fingernail, waiting for the Sheriff to leave.

Etherton nodded politely. “¿Como esta?” he asked.

Octavio waved back timidly and backed towards the door.

“Say, amigo,” the sheriff said, wishing he spoke more Spanish, “that other fella, el otro hombre, cual es su nombre?”

“¿Mande?”

“El tres hombre.” He struggled for the two semesters of Spanish that he barely passed back in college. “El viejo. Su nombre.”

The dishwasher glanced over his shoulder, probably wishing he had slipped inside before the lawman started talking to him. “Quien, Paco?”

“Paco?” Etherton asked, uncertain if that was even a real name.

The kid smiled. “Sí, su nombre es Francisco,” he giggled effeminately, “pero se lo llaman Paco Herte.”

The sheriff nodded seriously. “Paco Herte,” he muttered to himself.

“Sí.” The kid giggled again. “Paco Herte.”

“Gracias.” Etherton nodded, pulling a little notepad from his pocket to scribble it down. “Muchas gracias, amigo.”

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The dishwasher giggled. “De nada.”

Sheriff Etherton eased the cruiser off the interstate a few streets early and took an opportunity to roll slowly down East Second Street, the slums, if Arroyo Grande had any. Most of the houses along that stretch were old single-story ramblers with backyards abutting the salt flats beyond. Most of those were occupied by working families with poverty-level incomes just trying to get by. He might get called down there for a domestic dispute, or to subdue a loud party that had run too late, but most of the residents were harmless; they generally liked seeing the cruiser roll along their street as a point of civic pride. Kids in the yard would wave, and Sheriff Etherton waved back, flashing his friendliest neighborhood lawman smile. All he really wanted for was a loping horse with a well-polished saddle and a Clorox-white Stetson to tilt as he ambled past.

Near the north end of the street, he took on the practiced steely gaze of the gunfighter that he only pretended to be. There were a few meth dens that never completely cleared out. Where there was one tweaker, others would eventually congregate and he knew that a few of them had nests of a dozen junkies burrowed into every room, tool shed, and garage space. They were mostly discrete, which suited him just fine. The occupants tended to either scurry back into the dark on sight or nervously attempted to look as nonchalant as possible while dismantling a lawn mower in the front yard for no apparent reason. Cruising by every once in a while, sent them into a paranoid flurry in his wake. For a week or two afterwards they would continue to watch out the battered Venetian blinds, assuming that a bust was imminent.

He eased around the corner and up the block towards the garage, taking stock of the various dilapidated motorhomes that shuffled through on occasion. He pulled into the Desert Sand lot and straight up to pump one. Deep in the service bay, a bell announced him. Jeremiah ducked out from under a little white Ford Ranger, pausing his work long enough to wave, and then slid back under the fender.

The sheriff stepped from the cruiser to a dry gust of wind off the salt flats. He squinted out across the hardpan and shielding his eyes from the sun, watched a low dust storm slide quickly along the desert floor.

The sheriff scuffed gravel across the lot, announcing his presence. The Ranger was on the center lift, Jeremiah tucked up under the front right fender, the ratchet of a socket wrench cranking echoed from within.

“Afternoon, Sheriff. Anything I can help you with?”

“Just stopping by to check and see that you’re alright.” The sheriff leaned back against a dented Honda in the oil pit bay. “Missed you at your appointment yesterday.”

The ratchet stopped. Jeremiah froze. He was so close, just a few months away. “No,” he said, quietly. “Fuck,” he groaned softly, but it echoed from under the fender. “Sheriff, I am so sorry.”

“Relax, Jeremiah. I’m just messin’ with you.”

“Fuuuuck,” Jeremiah said. He yanked the oil rag from his belt and threw it in the sheriff’s general direction. The ratchet cranked a few more times. “Just gimme a second, here, I’ll be right with you.”

When Jeremiah was satisfied with the new starter he ducked out from under the truck. The sheriff handed him his rag. Jeremiah flipped a switch and punched the green button on the pillar beside the lift. The levitating truck lowered with a slow hydraulic hiss, gently placing the tires back on the ground. Jeremiah watched the sheriff stroll casually to the back door, peering out onto the lot as if the edge of the concrete slab was a diving platform.

The sheriff smiled. “You mind?”

“Have at it, man.” Technically, as his parole officer, the sheriff was allowed to cruise through any time he wanted to, but he rarely bothered to stop by in an official capacity. Jeremiah ducked into the bathroom to degrease. He pumped a few squirts of orange pumice soap into his palm and started into a final washup. “Grab me one while you’re back there.”

The sheriff glanced down at his watch and figuring that it was close enough to five, he meandered back to the trailer, casually glancing around. He pulled a couple of long necks from the mini fridge and popped the caps on the bottle opener bolted to the trailer wall beside the screen door. Taking a long pull off his beer, he surveyed the porch. The ashtray was empty, the V8 cylinders had been cleared of empty beer bottles, and the dusty Astroturf carpet had been swept. “Megan’s been by,” he observed.

Jeremiah nodded, sidling up, and drying his hands on the cleanest oily towel he had. “You just missed her.”

The sheriff handed him a beer. “You, uh, seen Victor at all?”

Jeremiah shook his head, taking a few gulps and wiping a bit of foam from the corner of his mouth with the clean back of his wrist. The wind, catching the top of the open bottle played an aeolian note, harmonizing with the breezes howling through the repair bays. “I heard he got himself pretty busted up. Thought he was in the hospital.”

“He was.” Greg nodded. “Vanished from the hospital. Thought maybe he slipped back into town, maybe?”

Jeremiah shrugged. “Not that I heard.” He collapsed into the armchair, reaching into his work shirt for his smokes. “He was on a bit of a rampage. From what I heard, a few people were hoping to slow his roll, though.”

Sheriff nodded. “Any idea who might have collected him?”

Jeremiah shook his head and squinted off like he was watching his words. “Guy was more of a liability than an asset, I hear. Not a lot of friends left in the organization.”

“The organization?”

“Not my story to tell, Greg.” Jeremiah sipped his beer and picked at the label. “Family business and all. They got their own judicial system.”

“What family business?”

Jeremiah sat forward again and glanced around. Hunkered down over his beer he had an unusually frank look about him that unsettled Etherton. “Look, man. I’m sorry Vincent gave those guys in Bakersfield the slip, and I can appreciate the position you’re in, but this is none of my fuckin’ business, and you don’t want to make it yours, either. You might just let Jesus handle his own affairs on this one.” He gave a curt nod to let the sheriff know that he had finished speaking and leaned back again. “Far as you’re concerned, he’s probably holed up with one of his cousins, working their way through a case of Cazadores. Probably won’t be back to bother anyone anytime soon.”

Jeremiah wasn’t exactly the religious type but the more he said, the more he mumbled and the sheriff got to worrying that there might be some things that he didn’t want to know. “Is Megan alright?”

Jeremiah nodded and smirked. “She’s alright for a girl.”

The sheriff just shook his head. “Maybe you guys ought to make it official.” Maybe a nice girl might settle Jeremiah down some, or at least clean him up and wash away the ex-con aura that held most of the town at a healthy distance.

“Nah.” He lit his smoke, exhaling it into the warm afternoon wind. “I’m not her mister right. I’m just her mister right now.”

Sheriff shrugged, glancing around the lot. “Yeah,” he swiped a finger across the recently cleaned shelf, “she’ll ruin your reputation if she keeps up like this.” The sheriff took another sip and casually strolled out into the sun, still looking around the lot like he’d never been there. “Both of you kids have got my number if anything gets out of hand.”

Jeremiah snorted a laugh. “Oh, the Megan situation is well in hand, Sheriff.”

The sheriff leveled a stern fatherly gaze at Jeremiah.

Jeremiah waved him off. “Relax, Greg. I’m not getting in any trouble for Victor.”

The sheriff nodded, pacing around to get a nonchalant glance behind the trailer.

Jeremiah finished the bottom half of his beer in a few gulps and slid the empty into the newly vacant engine. He pulled another from the fridge and popped the cap off with his lighter. “Looking for anything specific?” he asked.

The sheriff chuckled. “Busted.”

“Maybe I can help you find it.”

Sheriff leaned back against the fender of the Volvo. “Austin and Jynx were acting a little screwy earlier. Dropped by to have some sort of clandestine chat with Ashley. Austin had me side-eyed. I figured if they were up to anything, you’d know if it was anything worth worrying about.”

Jeremiah laughed and leaned back in his easy chair. “Yeah, Sheriff. The Tough Guy club is at it again.” He pulled the handle and flopped backward with the EZ boy. “Fuckin’ criminal element is ruinin’ this town.”

“You uh, you got anything you want to share?”

Jeremiah pulled his aviators from the table beside him. “Nope,” he said, sliding them on and picking up the remote control. He flicked on the flatscreen, hoping to doze off to the end of Wheel of Fortune. “Wanna see my grow room? Plants are damn near six feet high now.” He pointed at the Costco pop-up tent tucked up against the last bay. The walls seemed to breathe in the afternoon breeze.

The sheriff raised an eyebrow at Jeremiah.

“Go on.” Jeremiah waved him away.

Sheriff Etherton was a fairly clever guy. His years in politics taught him a certain talent for reading people. Jeremiah had nothing to hide, but there wasn’t much point in trying anyway. “Alright, I’ll bite,” the sheriff said. He sauntered over towards the tent.

When the wind picked up, it hammered the sides of the Costco tent, whipping up the bottom skirt. Tarps and slipcovers all over the lot billowed in the dry air, crackling and popping over the rusted carcasses, lending to the bleached-out post-apocalyptic quality of the Desert Sands boneyard.

The sheriff pulled back the tent flap to find a big formless fishing boat or dinghy of some sort, without wheels or doors or a windshield, painted flat black with hotrod flames running along the side of it. The paint was relatively fresh, or at least dust-free. The sheriff walked along beside it, running his hand over the aerodynamically perfect, smooth edge. He admired the clean pinstriping work that outlined the pale blue flames. Jeremiah was improving. It was only a matter of time before he started working towards something beyond radiator fixes and fresh windshield wipers. He was outgrowing Arroyo Grande. Once his probation was through, the sheriff quietly hoped that if he wasn’t going to settle down, the kid might move to LA and get into the classic car restoration business. He might do well in a trade school or apprenticeship. He wasn’t made for college, but with the right education, Jeremiah could look into six figures doing custom fabrication work in a high-end garage in the city. If he stayed in the town, it was only a matter of time before somebody like Victor picked a fight and got Jeremiah sent back in on a parole violation or a second offense.

“Helluva paint job,” the sheriff said, stepping from the cloistering heat of the temporary detailing tent.

Jeremiah raised his beer in gratitude.

“What the hell is it?”

Jeremiah sat forward to stab his cigarette out in the ashtray. “Don’t know. The kids pulled it out of the wash and figured it was some sort of Hollywood prop of some sort left over from the sixties. Maybe a spare external fuel tank from one of the bases. Had a big hole in it, but I fixed it.” He pulled another cigarette from the pack and placed it to his lips. “I think they were planning to sell it to Vickers for his janky little museum, or maybe just scrap it out if Vickers couldn’t pay.”

“And you painted it?”

Jeremiah shrugged. “I told him if he left it on my lot, it was mine. I was drunk. I figured it was good for practice, a smooth clean surface like that.”

Sheriff took a seat in a folding chair at the edge of the shade, leaning back. “Ah, hell, is that it?”

Jeremiah nodded, smirking.

“Jesus, the way Austin looked this morning, you’d think he’d just rolled the bank last week.”

Jeremiah snickered. “That kid couldn’t pick a dollar bill up off the sidewalk without asking everyone nearby if they’d dropped it.”

“Ain’t that the truth.”

“Face it, Greg. You’ve got a cop face. Just one look at you, and I’d confess to just about anything.”

Sheriff chuckled. He wanted to think he had more of a public servant face only identifying as sheriff during business hours, but he got the feeling that Jeremiah was yanking his chain. “Yeah, well, your guilty conscience and all.”

Jeremiah held his hands out, wrists together, ready to be cuffed.

The sheriff nodded. “Well, I’m sorry I bothered you, kid.”

Jeremiah raised his beer again. “No sweat, man. Probably shouldn’t be drinking alone anyway.”

The sheriff swirled his beer around, listening to the tone change with the wind. “I guess we can skip next week’s appointment,” the sheriff said.

“Ah hell no, Sheriff. You ain’t hauling my ass in on a technicality.”

“Wednesday?”

“Only reason I got to wear a tie. Wouldn’t miss it.”

“Make it late? Maybe we can swing by the Starlight and do a little wellness check on Megan afterward.”

“You buy, I’ll fly,” Jeremiah said.

“Right, well,” the sheriff finished the last few gulps, sliding his empty into another cylinder on the V8. “Think you can squeeze me in for a tune-up by early Thursday?”

“I’ll put an order in for the kit tomorrow.”

“Sounds good.” The sheriff winked and wandered back towards the front lot.

Jeremiah turned the volume up on the TV. Sajak read another clue, having something to do with Kansas. Jeremiah didn’t much mind the Sheriff stopping by. He wasn’t a real cop; he was more of a placeholder until a proper pig arrived.

Jeremiah counted letters on Vanna’s board with the green spangles and the white backlit rectangles. The theme was destinations, still part of the week-long vacation specials. “Over the rainbow!” Jeremiah yelled at the idiot spinning the wheel on his way to bankruptcy.

As observant as Sheriff Etherton was, Jeremiah thought, he had entirely failed to notice that the Tough Guy club’s hotrod-painted Hollywood prop was silently hovering two feet above the ground.