Page 54 of A Long Con

We caned it down the increasingly decrepit road, and soon Hogshead came into view.

I had taken a giant risk that someone would come along and part out or tow my ride back there in the sudden river, but the chance seemed worth it to me. I wanted revenge on Hogshead more than anything. And yeah, I wanted Teddy Fucking Roosevelt’s rug. Hogshead hung a right toward a slot canyon, so we followed maybe only sixty yards behind. No point in pretending to hide now.

We still had to cross several streams, a few where Hogshead floored it, a couple where he took his careful time. But on all, we had to tiptoe across so as not to bog down Berkeley’s machine.

During one crossing, I said to Berkeley, “Looks like he’s heading into that canyon. Why the fuck would he do that?”

“Good fucking question. I’m sure there’s nothing but a couple hogans and sheep.”

I’d never been this close to such stunning sandstone sculptures. I thought Berkeley might become inspired and start painting in the southwest style under his real name—Berkeley Moynihan. To me, that was his real name. He’d have to remain incognito, though. Not show his face around. Maybe another Zealot could pretend to be him at openings and shows. Turk would work. He was a good artist in his own right, and handsome as fuck.

The canyon walls seemed to have been created as sediments a zillion years ago. The layers, instead of being truly horizontal, were sort of cross-laid in shades of eggplant, wine, and blush. Windblown, some of the narrower slot canyons looked to have been carved by streams and washes—by flash floods like the ones we’d just been crossing. Some of them must’ve been eight hundred feet deep.

And Ira Hogshead barreled straight for one.

Now on a dirt trail, if one existed at all, Hogshead fishtailed it. We were so close I could see him holding his phone to his head, getting instructions on whatever the fuck he was attempting.

“What if you shoot out his tire?” Berkeley yelled.

“Then he’d shoot us through the heads.”

There was a brief silence, then, “What if you shoot him through the head?”

I smiled to myself. My boy was becoming quite the man. “That would work, if I could get a better shot.”

And it looked like Hogshead might be giving me one.

He drove as far into the canyon as he could, then stopped by a creek. He appeared to be assessing whether he could cross it. Berkeley stopped forty yards behind and waited. The creek looked about four feet deep. Berkeley’s ride would never make it.

But Hogshead tried.

“What the fuck?” Berkeley marveled as the sedan backed up ten feet, then made a go of it.

It cleaved the water at first. From this angle I could even see Hogshead’s determined face, lower jaw set, looking like a cartoon character driving a train.

“Heilige Scheiße,” I muttered. Holy shit.

But the force of the rushing tide proved too much for the late model car. Like my faithful Road King, the vehicle turned in a clockwise manner, the front bumper at twelve o’clock. The trunk followed the hands of the clock around the dial until the entire car began sweeping downstream, nearly toppling over when it hit big boulders.

“Holy mother,” said Berkeley. “He’s not getting out of this one.”

“Let’s see what happens,” I said.

Before long, Hogshead was bailing from the car. He stood up, taller than the car, so the water couldn’t have been too deep there. He had to clamber and jump around the failing vehicle until he was free of it, and he walked like the Abominable Snowman to the other side. He resembled that plodding monster because he wore a giant backpack with a metal frame.

It probably weighed a ton with Roosevelt’s rug in there. And the cardboard FedEx tube with the painting was no doubt disintegrating by now.

I was off Berkeley’s ride, running to where the car had been deposited by the racing water, wedged between two boulders. Hogshead paused, safely on the other shore, before flipping me off again. “Eat shit and die!” He waved his revolver, but didn’t shoot us, probably his ultimate mistake.

And he turned to scurry up the cliff.

“Sweet Hitler’s hairpiece!” yelled Berkeley. “He’s gonna fucking walk back to Lake Havasu?”

I said, “He really had his ‘go bag’ ready. I have no idea what’s fucking happening. But I think we should cross this stream.”

“Yeah,” Berkeley immediately agreed. “This looks like the shallowest spot, and we can use the car as a hand-hold.”

I held Berkeley back by gripping his shoulders. I didn’t have to say “let me go first” because that was obvious. I was a few inches taller which meant less water in my mouth.