‘So it was!’ Patty exclaimed. ‘Lake Dolores. I haven’t heard that name in years. That place used to have kids coming from all over in the sixties. First waterpark in America, you know. Shame it closed down.’
‘It’s closed?’
‘Oh hell yes. That’s why I didn’t think of it right off. It’s been closed for, man, must be fifteen years. It’s been another twenty years since it was called Lake Dolores. Nothing but a ghost park now. The buildings are all still standing but nothing but cockroaches there these days.’
‘Is it far?’
‘Far? Honey, it’s less than twenty miles away straight along the 15. You can’t miss it.’
CHAPTER 17
It was right there off the freeway, just a deserted desert block in full view of every car and truck that thundered east to Baker and Vegas or west to Barstow and LA.
Lake Dolores. Rock-A-Hoola Waterpark.
‘I must have driven past this place a dozen times, maybe twenty, and never stopped to wonder what it was,’ Salgado admitted.
‘Hiding in plain sight,’ O’Neill told him.
‘Guess so.’
They’d turned off the freeway onto Yermo Road, a dusty two-way that ran alongside the rail track. A half-mile long freight train paced beside them for a bit then disappeared into the distance as they slowed to turn left, crossing above the freeway then left again onto Hacienda Road and the old entrance to the abandoned park. Salgado pulled into the dirt and parked.
The desert sun hit them as soon as they got out of the car, standing either side of it and staring at the faded signs and multicoloured buildings they could see through the palms and across the sand.
Salgado looked doubtfully to the ground and O’Neill could see the thoughts see-sawing through his head.
‘You worried about those shoes?’ She pointed at the brown Italian leather brogues on her partner’s feet. ‘They look good with that expensive suit but there’s a chance they might not be the best choice for the desert.’
‘No,’ he replied defensively. ‘I’m worried about snakes. I don’t like snakes.’
She tried to hide a grin. ‘There’s bound to be rattle-snakes round here. It’s their territory, not ours. But you’ll hear them. They rattle real loud.’
‘They all look like sticks, right?’
‘Right. And all sticks look like rattlers.’
‘Great.’
Two great palms stretched to the sky right in front of them. Behind, on the hill to the right, a huge white cylindrical water tower dominated the vista. To the left, the faded remains of the waterpark sprawled beyond the sand with the Calico Mountains in the distance. Salgado sighed then led the way.
Patty had told them the park was built up water ride by water ride by the first owner, a guy named Bob Byers, intending it just to be for his own kids and their cousins, until it grew big enough that the obvious thing was to open it for business.
It was now a weather-worn graffiti palace. Every available inch was spray-painted in slogans and art, much of it suitably sinister. The old water tower on the hill had a giant Coca-Cola bottle etched on it, while the billboard a hundred yards in front of it proclaimed itself to be the property of Shie47.
Dry sticks cracked under their feet and O’Neill hid a smile each time Salgado jumped. The slick city boy wasn’t enjoying this much.
As they neared the park entrance, they saw there were a number of buildings that would easily serve as a body dump. Even if Walker Wright was here, he wasn’t going to be easy to find. It could have been the pink stucco block to the right with the art deco frontage, or maybe the long block behind the four stocky palms. That was before they even passed through the gates.
Salgado stepped over a fallen palm, sidestepped a piece of rock and made his way inside the first building, O’Neill at his heels. They were greeted by a riot of decay and destruction. The ceiling had been pulled down, insulation strewn on the floor and dangling from exposed beams. An air duct drooped in mid-air like an elephant trunk while another sprouted copper wiring like a steampunk haircut. The walls and thick central pillars were covered in art, leading them deeper into the room in search of hidden corners. They advanced warily, Salgado not the only one giving thought to what might be sleeping under the rubble that littered the floor. Every step offered the chance of disturbing a sleeping rattler or stumbling across the weatherman’s decaying corpse.
The first building didn’t give them anything other than chills, the second one the same. They passed through the official gate, defaced with the uplifting message that Life Is Bittersweet, but with the consolation that Jesus Loves You from John 3:16.
A kids’ stroller stood abandoned on the baked tarmac, daubed in paint and long forgotten.
‘This place is creepy as hell, O’Neill.’
‘You think? Is it the ghosts of long-lost childhoods or the bones that might be bleaching in the sun? Or the snakes?’
‘Fuck you.’
‘I’m just asking.’
Salgado stomped off to the right, reclaiming his machismo by barrelling straight into the next building, a low-slung white concrete oblong that was sprayed in green and red. As soon as he was inside, he slowed his pace, seeing it was a minefield of potential missteps.
‘Shit.’ She was right behind him. ‘If we thought the rest was creepy . . .’
‘Yeah.’
The white walls screamed with graffiti, the ceiling falling towards them as polystyrene tiles booby-trapped the floor. Air ducts and wiring, broken doors, dark corners and half-open closets. It was in half darkness, punctured by blinding laser beams of light as the sun broke in through holes in the plasterboard.
Outside again, the sun felt even harsher. It was over ninety with not a whisper of wind. They had to manoeuvre their way through a twisting section that looked like it once held water, across a now unnecessary bridge to another, bigger building.
As soon as they were inside they saw it used to be a concession stand, a long counter facing out to the public, the floor behind it a mess of tiles, panels and spurs of wood. Two metal panels that might have been the back of control boxes glinted in the sun. Beyond them, a human-shaped hole had been broken through plasterboard. Salgado shrugged and ducked through it, finding a maze of rooms. Some dark, some light, all junked with boxes, cabling, metal spikes, ceiling tiles and pieces of wood.
They emerged once more into the broiling heat and climbed a steep hill behind the dried-out concrete river, where concrete steps led to a series of concrete crossbar-like structures at the top. It was a concrete Parthenon. From there the barren park spread out before them, the highway and train track beyond.
Salgado did a 360, seeing a dust devil spiralling maybe halfway to the Calicos in the west. The wind blew, muffling the cars on the 15 and increasing the sense of isolation.
‘So, we were wrong?’
He puffed out his cheeks and grimaced. ‘I don’t think so. Garland’s bank record says it. The diner says it. His ex-wife says it. And . . .’
‘Don’t tell me. Your gut says it.’
‘Yes, it does. It surely does.’ He finished his slow spin, ending up staring east at the white water tower a thousand feet away on the hill.
‘In there,’ he told her. ‘He’s got to be.’