LEFT ON RANCHO, Chapter 7 Excerpt
After the prep sessions, Andrew headed out to the taco truck. As he waited in line, he shielded his face from an unpleasant, swirling, warm wind. It felt different . . . suffocating. The skunk odor was gone, the easterly wind dissipating the rancid smell. The same easterly wind that transformed into Santa Anas as it funneled over the mountains and accelerated through the passes, and dried out as it rolled down the hills and slopes, fueling fires before reaching the ocean. He remembered the scars of the Oakland and Berkeley Hills fires, which were still present when he’d arrived as a freshman at Cal in ’93. The fires and destruction touched everyone at the university.
“You again,” Renée said.
“The name’s Andrew.”
“My tacos must have made an impression. Was it the tongue or the tripe?” She grinned.
“What are you smiling at?”
“Are you going to order?”
“Right. Barbacoa. You pick the other two.” He stepped to the side, flustered.
As he waited, he noticed Ashlee’s battered Chevy Cruze pulling into the parking lot. She seemed haggard, her hair scrunched into a tight bun and wearing sweats as if she had just woken up. But as much as he wanted to go off on her about the tardiness, he was relieved and would let it slide for today.
A strong gust buffeted the awning over the serving window; the canvas slapped on the metal frame. “Hey, Andrew.” Renée leaned out the window. “Would you mind untying and helping me roll up the awning? This wind is freaking me out. It’s been at it all morning.”
He untied the ropes on both sides of the frame as she pulled it up, securing the awning on a couple of hooks.
“Thanks,” she said, stepping out of the truck.
He had only seen her from the waist up until now. She was five-foot-eight, maybe five-foot-nine. Up close, he noticed a small mole just above her lip. Elegant. Her jeans and white T-shirt gave her a pleasant, casual demeanor. Approachable.
“How do you like Adelanto?” she asked.
“Everything I dreamed of.”
She smiled . . . a pleasant smile.
“I haven’t had a chance to explore.”
“There’s nothing to explore.”
“I’m staying at the company digs, out in Helendale, until I figure out where to settle.”
“Not much to do out there.” She stared at the ground, her foot toying with a pebble. “What brings you to the High Desert?”
“Helping out a friend.”
“Charlie?”
“You know him?”
“We’re catering the party Friday.”
Andrew nodded in approval.
“And where did you come from?” she asked.
“San Fran.” He hated the sound of it.
“Been there for work.”
“Tacos?”
“A prior life.”
“A prior life to tacos?”
She leaned back on the truck, a droll smile on her face.
“Andrew!” A brunette handed him his order.
He thanked her, opened the bag, and took in the aroma: roast pork and rosemary. It reminded him of the porchetta he’d devour during summers in Italy. “It’s good you’re doing the taco thing now.”
She opened the door of the truck. “We should get together sometime, you know, not out here.”
“Sure.”
“I’m in Claremont, near the colleges.”
“I’ll be in LA next week,” he said. “Where are you off to now?”
What a lame thing to ask.
“Muskrat. We have a faithful following there.” She glanced over at the serving window, where the brunette was resting her head on her hands, smiling. “Andrew, meet Lina. Lina, Andrew,” Renée said.
“Hola.” Lina waved. Andrew smiled back.
“Well, I better go,” he said to Renée. He noticed her hands. Her fingers were long, thin, and graceful, devoid of jewelry, but that didn’t mean anything because she was in a kitchen all day. His mind was now in overdrive: What did you do before tacos? How did you get into the taco gig? How long’s the commute to Claremont? Where are you from? He was sweating.
“Enjoy the tacos,” she said.
He forgot to ask for her number.
Copyright © 2025 Francesco Paola
For fans of Tod Goldberg’s Gangster Trilogy and Tim O’Brien’s America Fantastica, this contemporary noir follows a burned-out tech entrepreneur into the Wild West of California cannabis and the converging worlds of contraband weed and illegal immigration.
It’s October 2019 and Andrew Eastman, a tech entrepreneur with a bank account running on fumes, has just ridden into Adelanto, a desolate outpost in the Mojave Desert, to help an old friend. The ask: turn around a fledgling legal cannabis operation.
Andrew, the outsider, asks too many questions—about the viability of the legal market, the inoperative surveillance cameras in the factory, and the dominance of the illegal trade—and makes himself a target. Undeterred, he journeys from Adelanto to West Hollywood to the underbelly of Los Angeles on a hunt for contraband. When he lands at the intersection of cannabis and immigration, and as bodies pile up around him, he is left with one last decision—one that will forever change him.
Thriller Crime [SparkPress, On Sale: February 11, 2025, Paperback / e-Book , ISBN: 9781684632923 / eISBN: 9781684632930]
Francesco Paola was born in Turin, Italy, and was raised in Italy, Thailand, and Australia before moving to the US, where he earned an engineering degree from MIT and an MBA from the Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley. He is an accomplished technology entrepreneur, and from 2019 to 2021 worked at a legal cannabis startup in California while on a sabbatical from tech. He has written technical blogs, white papers, and articles for over twenty-five years as an executive in the tech-startup ecosystem. He and his wife, the novelist Jackie Townsend, have called New York City home since 1999.
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