by Don Winslow
“What did he do?” she asks.
“Among other things,” Boone says, “he hit a woman.”
She thinks about this for a minute and then says, “He checked in last night.”
“What room?” Boone asks, feeling his adrenaline rise. Dave is out in the parking lot keeping an eye out in case Terry is there, sees Boone and makes a run for it.
“Room 208,” she says.
“Do you know if he’s in there now?” Boone asks.
“He checked out this morning,” she says. “Well, this afternoon. Checkout time is noon, and I had to call him at twelve-thirty.”
Terry left Samantha’s with the stuff he stole and holed up here, Boone thinks. Knew enough to spend only one night, because he knows the process. Now he’s finding another place to hide until he can lay off the watch and the necklace for the money that will really allow him to run.
We’re in a race.
“Do you know if he was alone?” Boone asks.
He knows she does. The hotel office is neat and immaculate. An owner like this sees who comes in and out of her business.
“There was a young lady,” she says. “She came and went to his room.”
“Was she there when he checked out?”
The woman is embarrassed. “Yes.”
So Terry hooked up with another woman. He has transportation and maybe another place to stay.
“Can you tell me what kind of car she drove?”
“I don’t know much about cars,” she says.
He thanks the woman and goes back out to the van.
“He was here as of noon today,” Boone says. “He’s on the move.”
“What next?” Dave asks.
“Keep the pressure up,” Boone says. “Someone we talk to is going to run to Terry and tell him we’re close. If we can keep him moving, we have a chance.”
They’re up in Solana Beach when the phone rings.
It’s Tide.
Terry is going to score.
Tide is waiting for them in the parking lot of the Carlsbad Shore Apartments, off Washington Avenue and Chestnut Street up in North County, just three blocks inland from Tamarack Beach. His truck is parked on the east side of the two-story building, beside a narrow strip of brush with a dirt walking path along the railroad tracks.
Boone pulls in next to him.
Tide rolls his window down. “Do you know Tommy Lafo?”
Boone doesn’t.
“You’re better off,” Tide says. “He’s a waste of space, a heroin dealer.”
“Is this his place?”
“His grandparents’.”
“Are they here?” Boone asks. Because that could be a problem. He doesn’t want to get older people involved with this and somehow getting hurt.
Tide shakes his head. “They’re back in Palauli, seeing family. They’d die of shame if they knew.”
“Why did he flip on Terry?”
“He’s in trouble with USO,” Tide says. “He knocked up a shot-caller’s niece, and they’re looking to punish him. He needs help.”
He came to the right place, Boone thinks. High Tide quit the United Samoan Organization years ago, but they still look at him as a respected “uncle” who serves as a peacemaker with the Sons of Samoa, the Tonga Crips and other islander gangs. He can get Tommy some slack, maybe a trip down the aisle instead of a one-way ride to a vacant lot.
“We’d better get in there,” Tide says. “Maddux is on his way.”
“How’s he getting here?” Dave asks.
“Tommy didn’t say,” Tide tells him. “I don’t think he knows.”
“It’s probably the girl from last night,” Boone says.
Boone and Tide go into the building. Dave waits outside to spot for Terry and be out there in case he runs. The apartment building is nondescript, basic cinder-block construction. They take the elevator to the second floor.
Tide knocks on Tommy’s door.
Tommy Lafo is in his early twenties, small and skinny. His long black hair is tied up into a topknot. Tattoos run from his neck down into his black shirt, and he has inked sleeves. He looks nervous.
He should, Boone thinks.
High Tide is not a man you mess with.
Tommy looks up at Tide and says, “What’s up, uce?”
“I’m not your ‘brother,’ pukio,” Tide says. “I’d introduce you, but you’re not worth knowing my friends. Is Maddux on his way?”
“Five minutes out,” Tommy says. “He just texted me.”
Tide looks around the small apartment—the living room and kitchen they’re standing in, an open door to a bedroom, another door to a bathroom. “We’ll wait in the bedroom. You let Maddux in, shut the door behind him. Where’s your shit?”
Tommy points at a backpack set in a chair. “In there.”
“You get his money, give him the dope,” Tide says. “He’ll be all busy with that, we’ll come in and grab him. You just stay out of the way, understand?”
“Sure.”
“If you screw me on this,” Tide says, his eyes boring into the kid, “ou e fasioti oe.”
Tommy goes pale.
Boone doesn’t speak Samoan, but he has no doubt that Tide just told Tommy he’d kill him.
They go into the bedroom, leaving the door open a crack.
Boone’s phone vibrates. He clicks on and hears Dave say, “Terry just got out of the car. A girl is driving. She didn’t get out.”
Boone clicks off and nods to Tide.
Tide slips a pair of handcuffs from under his shirt.
Boone hears Tommy’s phone bing from a text. It’s probably Terry downstairs, letting him know he’s coming up.
A minute goes by. . . .
Ninety seconds . . .
Boone whispers, “He fucked us.”
They go out the door just as Dave calls. “He’s in the parking lot, running toward the car. I have him cut off.”
Boone runs out of the apartment, doesn’t wait for the elevator but goes down the stairs, hearing Dave on the phone, “The girl took off. I’m chasing Terry south.” Reaching the parking lot, Boone turns right and sees Dave running in a vacant lot, then into a narrow alley between an old shed and another apartment building. Boone goes in behind. The alley narrows as it squeezes between two more buildings, and then Boone hears Dave yell “There!” and sees Terry burst out of the alley into someone’s backyard.
Then he loses him.
Dave yells, “Right! Right!”
Boone runs after him through the yard onto a wide driveway that opens to a cul-de-sac. He sees Terry run out of the cul-de-sac, through some low bushes and then head south on the dirt path alongside the tracks.
Dave is about twenty yards behind him.
It’s no contest. The head start isn’t going to help a middle-aged heroin addict against a legendary thirty-something lifeguard in superb shape. In constant training to save people in heavy surf, strong currents and mad riptides, Dave the Love God’s cardio is on par with that of world-class athletes.
Boone’s isn’t, but it’s still pretty damn good from the at-least-once-a-day surf sessions. The paddling looks easy, like the surfer is effortlessly gliding across the surface, but anyone who’s never done it can’t even guess what a grueling workout it is.
And Tide, carrying three-fifty, is no athlete when he’s off his board, but he’s now chugging away behind, pissed off and determined, with the DNA of people who paddled freaking canoes across thousands of miles of open ocean.
Terry isn’t going to outrun these three, and he’s about out of places to duck into as the brush decreases and the trail gets wider and more barren.
Boone knows it’s just a matter of time and not much of it.
Then he hears the horn.
And looks over to see the light of a train coming from the south.
Sees that Terry spots it, too, because Maddux stops, looks back at his pursuers and is clearly thinking about doing something rash.
To say the lea
st.
Boone yells, “Terry, don’t!”
Yeah, like Terry, don’t! has ever stopped him. Terry, don’t paddle out into that wave. Terry, don’t do another shot. Terry, don’t shoot smack. Terry Maddux has defined his entire life by defying Terry-don’ts and turning them into Terry-dids, and now he’s calculating the odds of running across the tracks in front of a speeding train and putting it between him and his pursuers.
Terry’s done similar things on Jet Skis, racing beneath a gigantic breaking wave to pull a buddy out of the impact zone. Hell, he’s done it on a board, flying down the face of a killer wave and through the tube before it can break and crush him.
He’s always come out the other side.
But Boone yells again, “Terry, don’t! It’s not worth it!”
Apparently it is to Terry.
To Boone’s horror he gathers himself and dashes onto the tracks in front of the speeding train.
To Boone’s greater horror, Dave starts to go after him.
Boone lunges, grabs him and holds him back.
They stand and watch Terry sprint across the track as the train engineer blasts his horn and the brakes screech in a futile effort to stop in time.
Terry clears the track five feet in front of the train.
“Jesus Christ,” Boone says.
And hears, over rattling cars, maniacal laughter and Terry yelling, “Fuck you, Boone!”
Dave’s pissed. “I could have made it.”
Maybe, Boone thinks. Dave’s fervent belief that he can perform the impossible has saved a number of lives in the waters off San Diego. But he says, “Not worth it.”
Tide hunches over, grabs his knees and sucks air.
Boone says, “He’s getting desperate. He didn’t score, he hasn’t fenced the merch, and he knows we’re getting close. He’ll make a mistake, and we’ll get him.”
He says it, but he’s not so sure.
They walk back to the apartment building’s parking lot.
Tide goes inside to slap the shit out of Tommy Lafo.
“Where do you think Terry went?” Dave asks Boone.
“Back to the girl who drove him here?”
“I got the license plate.”
“I figured you did.”
They call Duke, who calls a contact (one of many) in the police and gets back to them in twenty minutes with a name and address.
Sandra Sartini.
1865 Missouri Street in Pacific Beach.
Duke answers the doorbell.
Stacy is in her late twenties, redheaded, long-legged and buxom. She has a bit of a throwback look, not surprising for a man of Duke’s retro tastes. Indeed, Chet Baker is on in the background, singing “But Not for Me.”
Duke ushers her in.
She’s been here before, sets her bag on his sofa and smiles broadly. Stacy likes Duke—he’s a gentleman, he’s not weird, and he’s a good tipper. She notices the music and asks, “Is that Harry Connick Jr.?”
“Chet Baker.”
“Oh,” she says. “Last time it was . . . Gil Evans?”
“Good memory.” Duke walks to the bar and pours them each a glass of scotch, hands her one, and gestures for her to sit down. He’s in no hurry to get to the main event, and she’s comfortable that he’ll pay her for her time.
Stacy knows that Duke isn’t one of those guys who just likes to talk—he definitely will want sex, but he likes some of the niceties first. She’s come to find that she appreciates civility, and she’s learned a bit about music, too.
Duke, he’s careful about his pleasures. To rush them is to waste them, so he savors the whiskey, the music, the scent of her perfume, the curve of her leg under the skirt, the shine in her green eyes. In a few minutes, he’ll set down his glass, hold out his hand, and lead her upstairs into the bedroom.
A man in Duke’s business knows a lot of call girls, and he knows the best. Stacy is one of his favorites, but he harbors no foolish-old-man delusions that this is a girlfriend experience. He’s both aware and satisfied that this is a strictly commercial transaction, and he feels no guilt about this, with Stacy or any of the others.
He never cheated on Marie, never thought about it, wasn’t tempted, even though literally hundreds of women had offered him sex in exchange for a bond. But now Marie is gone, and has been for some time, and Duke is a realist.
A man has needs.
This is the simplest, easiest way of getting them met. He doesn’t want a “relationship,” knows that he will never fall in love again. This is just sex. Sex is fun, sex is good, sex is necessary, but that’s all it is. Stacy is accomplished in the sack. She’ll do her job well and with some charm and warmth, and then she’ll shower, dress and leave.
He’ll wake up alone. Going to bed with someone doesn’t feel like a betrayal of Marie’s memory, but waking up with someone somehow does, for reasons that he can’t articulate and the ethics of which he doesn’t want to debate, even with Neal and Lou.
The song ends, and Chet launches into “That Old Feeling.”
Duke sets his drink on the side table and reaches out his hand.
“I’m worried about Duke,” Karen says as she gets into bed.
“Duke’s fine,” Neal says, looking up from his Val McDermid novel. The expert on picaresque literature has developed a passion for crime fiction, and a stack of paperbacks—Ian Rankin, Lee Child, T. Jefferson Parker—sits on the side table.
“I’m not so sure,” Karen says. “How’s his heart?”
Neal shrugs.
Karen frowns at that response.
“We have a rule,” Neal says, “that we don’t talk about health problems.”
Karen shakes her head. These are men who will endlessly discuss whether “launch angle” is ruining baseball, the efficacy or lack thereof of loyalty cards (“How is it loyal to a business to take back ten percent of what you spend there?” Neal has asked), but won’t discuss something as literally vital as their health. She says, “He looked tired to me.”
“He’s worried,” Neal says. “About his business and this—what’s-his-name—Terry Maddux thing.”
Karen is eighty-five pages into Michelle Obama’s book. She finds her place, starts to read, and then asks, “Can you help him find this guy?”
“I’m a long way from my people-chasing days.”
What Neal used to do before he got his degrees and became an academic, he tracked down missing people for an exclusive detective agency that helped rich people with their problems.
“Maybe it’s like riding a bicycle,” Karen says.
“I’ve never ridden a bicycle,” Neal says. “I don’t intend to start. Anyway, Duke is a pro at this, he has good people who know the streets here. If Maddux went missing in the faculty lounge, I could maybe find him, but beyond that . . .”
Karen goes back to pretending to read. “I just thought you might want to help your friend.”
“You couldn’t wait for me to get out of that work, remember?” Neal asks.
She remembers. They’d broken up for years because of it, because he was always away somewhere, chasing someone, doing secret things he couldn’t share with her. It was only when he promised to give it up, and stuck to it, that she’d agreed to come back to him. And she’s much happier as a faculty wife, so she’s aware of the hypocrisy of what she’s suggesting.
“It’s a young man’s game,” Neal says. “And I hate to break it to you, but I’m not a young man.”
“You’re young enough,” she says, setting her book down and turning toward him.
She’s a good poker player.
A little while later, he says, “Okay, I’ll call him.”
He sits there all night.
Boone in the Boonemobile, outside 1865 Missouri.
Another apartment building and another cul-de-sac, Boone thinks.
A large, two-story, U-shaped complex with a central courtyard and a pool.
Sandra is home, or at least her car is parked in the subterranean
parking structure. The Boonemobile sits up in the street, across from the driveway that leads down into the structure. Dave is parked over on Chalcedony and Tide on Academy, in case Terry comes in toward a back entrance.
It’s the right thing to do, Boone thinks, but probably futile, because an experienced fugitive like Terry will figure that they got the license plate and will stay away from this address. Still, he might be off his game, or desperate for a place to stay, or not thinking because he’s strung out, so he might slip up or take a chance on coming back to Sandra.
Boone has already had Duke’s people run her. Sandra is an RN at Sharp Grossmont Hospital, in the E-Room. So she’s smart, she makes good money, and she isn’t likely to panic.
More from boredom than for any real reason, Boone calls Dave. “Anything?”
“I don’t know,” Dave says. “Has Terry become a shape-shifter?”
“Not that I’m aware of.”
“Then I can rule out the cat I just saw,” Dave says.
It’s coming toward sunrise. Soon Hang Twelve, Johnny Banzai and Sunny Day will be paddling out on the Dawn Patrol and wondering where they are.
The phone rings.
Dave says, “You think Maddux might be in there? Beat us over here and is just holing up?”
“It’s possible, I guess.”
“Should we go in?”
It’s too early, Boone thinks. He doesn’t want to scare the shit out of Sandra, guys banging on her door in the middle of the night, causing a scene that might arouse both the neighbors and the police. Better to wait until it’s light out and a time when Terry, if he is inside, is more likely to be asleep.
Always best to be a target’s waking nightmare.
Then, through the rearview mirror, he sees a car pull up about twenty feet behind him. A guy wearing a baseball cap gets out, jams his hands into his black leather jacket, walks toward the van and knocks on the window.
Boone rolls it down.
“Boone Daniels?” the guy asks.
“Yeah?”
“I’m Neal Carey,” the guy says. “Duke Kasmajian asked me to come over, see if I could be of any help.”
They go in at 7:00 A.M.
Either Terry is in there or he isn’t coming. Leaving Tide and Dave to watch the back in case Terry goes out a window, Neal and Boone go into the courtyard, walk around the pool and ring the bell on Sandra’s ground-floor unit.