by Jackson Ford
Reggie gives me a look. “Honey, please. You think this is my first rodeo? Purged the whole system the moment I heard about the warrant. Got out before the first cop car rolled into Brooks Court.” She takes a distracted sip of her tea. “And I still can’t figure out how you were caught on camera. There was nothing in that alley, no external surveillance. I checked.”
“So Annie and Carlos… are they…”
“They were out hunting down some of Annie’s contacts. They’re ditching the van now.”
“Ditching it?”
“Cops have an arrest warrant out for a woman of Annie’s description, driving a white van. They need to hide it.”
“You think Annie’s just going to tool around LA in a hot car?” The words hot car sound strange coming from Paul, like it’s a phrase he heard in some movie, and he’s decided to try it out. “She’s smarter than that. You don’t give her credit, but she is.”
“We’re waiting for them to call,” Reggie says.
“OK. Then what?”
“Then we pick them up. See how this all shakes out.”
Paul says nothing. Toying with his coffee. He looks out the window, giving a very gentle shake of his head.
“What?” I say.
No response.
“Paul,” says Reggie. “We talked about this.”
“I just think that—”
“Paul.”
He pauses then gives her a tight nod.
I almost turn on him. Demand that he finish his sentence. You just think what, Paul? That I really did kill Steven Chase? Go ahead and say it.
But it wouldn’t do any good. And right now I don’t know what else I can do to prove that it wasn’t me. If I wanted, I could have run any time in the past two hours, but here I am. If he can’t respect that, then… I don’t know.
Then I get an urge. A very powerful need to do just that: bug out. Stand up, walk out the door, hop a bus or a train or steal a goddamn car and just go. Get away from everything, find a new place, somewhere small and out-of-the-way, start fresh…
Ha. OK. And how long before Tanner catches up to me? Spending the rest of my life looking over my shoulder? No thanks. And that isn’t even talking about what I’d leaving behind. Nic, never knowing what happened to me. Carlos, sent back to Mexico. Annie, in prison. Reggie and Paul… God knows what Tanner will do to them. And all of them will think I did it—that I killed Steven Chase. Whoever actually did it will still be out there.
And I’ll never get to talk to them. Never find out who they are.
Reggie calls the waitress over and orders more tea. Paul and I get more terrible coffee. Fifteen minutes goes by. Half an hour. There are longer and longer periods of silence. I’m torn between wanting to just sit in this chair for ever, mostly because it would mean I never have to move again, and just tearing out of the diner and doing something, anything, no matter how stupid, because it would mean I didn’t have to sit in this chair for ever.
I could wait for Africa to dig something up, but that’s hours away—if he gets anything at all beyond more declarations of bad gris-gris. I could talk to people I’ve run into on previous jobs, but in all probability that’ll turn up zip. Every option feels fluffy, half-assed. I can’t afford to be half-assed right now. Whatever Annie has, it’s the best lead we’ve got.
And Reggie, at least, has my back. Paul listens to her, which means he’s on side. For now. It’s as good as I’m going to get.
Reggie and Paul take another look at the data from the coupler we planted, the one supposedly hoovering up Chase’s email data. He is—was—a busy guy, sending well over a hundred emails in the time between when we planted the coupler and when he was killed. “Probably trying to clear his inbox,” Paul mutters.
The email content is all encrypted of course, but the addresses aren’t. Problem is, there’s nothing useful there. Chase didn’t contact anybody we wouldn’t have expected him to; most of the emails are internal, to others at the Ultra fashion label. The ones that aren’t don’t help, either. There’s one to his wife, a few that went off to media contacts—CNN, MSNBC, Twitter. A couple of charity emails. One to a restaurant in NYC—I don’t recognise the name, which annoys me more than it should. Nothing we can use, and nothing you wouldn’t expect the CEO of a large clothing label to send.
“Nothing to or from Saudi either,” Reggie says.
Paul grunts.
They give up, and pretty soon we’re just sitting in silence. It’s awkward. Unnatural. And it’s not hard to guess why. Reggie might have told everyone that she doesn’t believe I killed Steven Chase, but there’s still that little nugget of doubt. And as for Paul? I’m pretty sure he’s only here because Reggie is.
Ten minutes later, just as the desire to start throwing things has grown so powerful that I’m having to work real hard to restrain myself, Reggie’s phone lights up.
It’s nestled in a slot on the arm of her chair. There’s a special ring on the back of the phone that allows her to hold it, and she slips her fingers through with practised ease. “Hello?”
Paul and I glance at each other, the hostility temporarily fading.
“OK, good,” Reggie says after a few moments. “We’ll meet you there. How are you folks doing?” Another pause. “Stay out of sight. We’ll be in Paul’s truck… OK. Yeah, OK. Thanks.”
She hangs up. Slowly puts the phone back in its cradle.
“And?” I say.
“The van’s safe. They’re waiting for us in Cypress Park.”
Paul grips the edge of the table. “Is Annie all right?”
“Fine.” Reggie doesn’t look at him. “She may need a little… soothing.”
“Yay.” I drain the last of my coffee and push my way out the booth. We can go see Annie, see if she’s dug up anything. And won’t the restaurant I got takeout from last night be open soon? We can go talk to them. They’ll confirm I was there. If nothing else, that might get Tanner off our backs.
“Hey,” the waitress says, looking over her shoulder as her hands work the coffee machine. “You haven’t paid yet.”
I point at Paul. “Technically, I’m on the clock. Put it on his tab.”
TWENTY
Jake
Jake sits on the short end of the L-shaped couch in the sunlit living room, using the floating rebar to direct the woman and her child onto the long end. Neither of them can tear their eyes away from the twisted steel. The little girl is crying silent tears, clutched to her mother’s chest.
The living room is an airy open-plan space, the kitchen behind the short bar of the couch’s L. Sliding glass doors look out onto a fenced backyard littered with toys. A plastic jungle gym stands sentinel in one corner, next to the thick trunk of a palm tree.
Jake is more tired than he thought he’d be. He’s used a lot of energy through the night, and now he has to burn even more here. He needs food and sleep, and that makes him angrier than he already is. If Javier had just been here, like he was supposed to…
There’s a low bookcase set along the wall to his right, filled with framed photos. He settles on one in the middle, and with a thought sends it flipping lazily through the air towards the couch. The woman moans, soft and horrified.
“This Javier?” he says, pointing at the centre figure in the hovering picture. The woman and her daughter are on either side of the man: a big, balding guy with what DeSoto from the Vegas road crew might have called a shit-face grin.
The woman swallows, nods.
“Mommy!”
“Ssh, baby. It’ll be OK.”
“Just tell me where he is.” The photo joins the two pieces of rebar, hovering between him and the woman.
“Just take what you want. We won’t stop you.”
“I want him.”
“How is he doing that?” the little girl says, pointing to the floating photo. Terror and curiosity mix in her voice. “Why can’t I do that?”
“Hush, baby.”
“I’m going to ask again.” He lea
ns forward. “Where’s Javier?”
No response. Her mouth opens and closes, but no sound comes out. Her wide eyes keep flicking between him and the pieces of floating rebar.
Jake sighs and sends one of them winding towards her head. She yelps, nearly skitters right off the couch. Her daughter squirms.
She speaks quickly. “We… There was a fight. He doesn’t live here any more, he moved away a few days ago. I don’t know where he’s staying. I—”
“Yes, you do.”
“No. He didn’t tell me.”
The rebar twitches. The woman actually yelps this time, eyes squeezed shut.
With a real effort of will, Jake pushes his anger down. Getting angry won’t help. He has to approach this calmly. Rationally.
They know what you can do. They know about your Gift.
No. It won’t come to that. He’ll think of something else.
He spreads his hands. “Nobody’s going to get hurt here, OK? We’re just having a conversation. I wouldn’t have had to use my Gift if you’d just let me in. You know that, right?”
The woman’s breaths are coming quickly now. She’s almost panting. Her eyes never leave the floating rebar.
“I don’t want you to think I’m a bad guy.” Suddenly it seems very important that he explain this. He has to make her understand. “I don’t have a family like yours. I don’t even know where I got my Gift. That’s the only reason I’m here, otherwise I would never have bothered you. I’m just trying to find out where I came from, you know?”
He scratches his nose, which has gone stuffy in the still air. “And like, I’m really sorry about all of this, but that’s why I need to speak to Javier. He’s the guy who… Once I’ve spoken to him, then my buddy Chuy will help me figure it all out. You know what I mean?”
“Please just go.” The woman’s voice is barely a whisper, her face a mess of tear tracks.
“You’re not listening to me.” The anger is back, burning a hole in his gut. “It’s like I said. I really didn’t mean to bother you. And I’m not just doing this for me. I know you want to protect Javier, but if you knew what he and his friends did in El Agujero, then you’d just…”
He comes to a stop, gnawing on his lower lip. His eyes never leave the woman. She won’t care. She won’t give a shit what Javier and the other two did. Maybe she even knows already. Maybe she was in on it. How can she live with herself? How can she live in this house with its picture-perfect backyard and it’s pretty kitchen, and not wonder about where the money came from? She must know. She has to.
And still he manages to keep himself under control. The smile that crosses his face at that moment is a grimace, a twisted fake. He makes it stay where it is.
“I’m trying to be nice here.” Hands folded in his lap. “I really am. All you have to give me is an address. Then I’ll never—”
They know about your Gift.
“—bother you again. I swear. Just talk to me. That’s all we’re doing. Just talking.”
Five seconds pass. Ten. A hummingbird flitters up to the window, takes in the scene, zips away as quickly as it arrived.
“Give her to me.”
“What?” It’s more breath than word.
“Your daughter. Give her here.”
The little girl’s sobs become wails. The muscles on the woman’s bare arms stand out like cords.
Jake pushes himself off the couch. With the rebar hovering in the air above them, he takes the girl, patiently winkling her out of her mother’s arms. The woman doesn’t want to let go, and Jake has to pull quite hard. When he finally has the kid, the woman just collapses in on herself, shoulders shaking, begging him not to hurt her daughter. In the kitchen the coffee machine gives a cheerful beep as it finishes brewing.
The brat tries to twist out of his arms, mewling with fear. He holds her very tightly as he sits back down on the couch, propping her on his lap, ignoring the mother’s choked sobs, her frantic instructions to her daughter to stay still. The picture frame floats between them.
“Do you know the story of Maud de Braose?” Jake says.
The kid won’t sit still, so he squeezes her tight. “I do. I like reading about history. I like knowing what happened before we got here. Now Maud, she was born in twelfth-century France. Noblewoman. And King John…” He bends down, addressing the kid in his lap. “Hey, sweetie, you ever watch Robin Hood? That Disney cartoon?”
“Mommy?”
“Shhh. Shhh, honey. Just… just don’t look at him.”
“Maybe you haven’t seen it yet.” Jake gives her an indulgent smile. “Anyway, King John—the real one, not the one in the cartoon—wasn’t the nicest guy. He needed money, and he wanted Maud’s castle. She wouldn’t give it to him, so he took Maud and her son prisoner. Brought them back to Windsor Castle in chains.”
In chains. Another one of those stupid writer expressions, like died screaming. How did they know?
“Kelly,” the woman is saying—moaning, really. “Kelly, look at me. It’s going to be OK.”
“That’s right,” he whispers in the girl’s ear. “Listen to your mommy. Keep looking right at her. Hope that she’s smarter than old Maud was. See, when John got Maud and her son back to Windsor Castle, he put them in a dungeon, then bricked up the door. When they eventually pulled it down a few years later, it turns out old Maud had taken a bite out of her son’s cheek.”
He snaps the picture frame into pieces, keeping the largest shard of glass airborne. In half a second, he has its point floating less than an inch from Kelly’s eye.
The woman shakes her head. The movement is a stiff jerk, as if the muscles in her neck have locked in place. She tries to speak, but the only thing that comes out is a soft, helpless, wheezing breath.
“You know why I like reading about history?” Jake says. “Because of what you can learn from it. Imagine what would have happened, for example, if Maud had just decided her castle wasn’t worth it. Do you think King John really would have bricked her and her son up if she’d done that?”
At that instant Kelly decides she’s had enough. She tries to jerk away from him, worm her way out from under his arm. He grunts, distracted, which is when the mother launches herself off the couch, fear and rage twisting her face.
Jake sends the two pieces of rebar whipping through the air, crashing sidelong into the woman’s chest, slamming her back. At the same time, he snags Kelly around the waist with his free arm, gripping as tight he can.
“I didn’t want to do this,” he says. “No one else was supposed to get hurt. I’m not that kind of guy.” The anger is still there, but now it feels good. Righteous, even. As if he’s done his duty. “I’m only doing it because you wouldn’t listen. This is your fault.”
And, on the last word, sends the glass shard right into Kelly’s throat.
Well… not all the way. Just the tip. Blood begins to leak down the little girl’s neck, and she stops moving. Jake expects her to gasp with the pain, but she goes dead silent.
“Let’s try again,” he says, addressing the writhing, gasping woman sprawled across the coffee table, the rebar pinning her chest and right arm to it. “Tell me where Javier is.”
“Please…”
Anger flares. “If you knew what he’d done, you wouldn’t be protecting him. Now, I don’t give a fuck if you’re divorced, separated, whatever. So you have to—hey, look at me—you have to decide. Him or your daughter.”
When she doesn’t respond, he claps a hand over Kelly’s mouth and drives the glass a little deeper into the soft flesh of her neck.
This time the little girl screams.
TWENTY-ONE
Teagan
Paul has this thing for really sappy 90s pop: Vanessa Williams, Bryan McKnight, Shania Twain, Celine Dion. The kind of music that makes me want to rip the entire audio system out of his truck. Then burn it. Then jump up and down on the ashes. Did he listen to that shit when he was in the navy? They must have loved him.
Thankful
ly, the ride to Cypress Park is short, and we don’t see a single cop car on the way. I can’t help jumping at every car horn, scanning the streets rolling by outside the window. I’ve got the back seat to myself; Reggie’s in the passenger seat, her chair folded up and stored in the truck’s cargo well.
Cypress Park is a neighbourhood to the north of downtown, along the LA River. Paul winds the truck through rundown neighbourhoods with potholed streets, eventually reaching North San Fernando Road. I’m curious to see where Annie and Carlos stashed the van—I have this image of them driving it into the dense foliage around the river, covering it with dirt and leaves to make it blend in.
When we roll up on them, they’re waiting on a street corner. Carlos gives us a lazy wave. Annie doesn’t. She’s ditched the security-guard outfit—smart—and is in jeans and a plain white T under a blue windbreaker. I have no idea where she got the clothes—from the van, perhaps. She has her hands jammed into the pockets of the jeans. She’s also found sunglasses. Big mirror shades. She couldn’t be less happy to see us if we were Donald Trump’s motorcade.
The second Paul brings the truck to a stop—the very second—I’m out the door and barrelling into Carlos, wrapping my arms around him. I’m not usually an emotional person, but it’s been kind of a stressful day.
“Yo.” He sounds almost surprised, as if he didn’t expect me to be here, but he hugs me back without hesitation. “’S all good. Cops didn’t get us.”
“God, I’m sorry.” I don’t know why I’m apologising. It’s not my fault the cops figured us out—or at least I’m pretty sure it’s not my fault. But the thought of him getting arrested… He’d be sent back to Mexico the moment they realised he was illegal. Even the thought of that is enough to make my gorge rise.
“Hey, no, it’s cool, Teags. It’s cool. We’re fine.”
I let go of him then go back in for another hug. “We should have gone to Point Reyes,” I say, voice muffled against his shoulder. “I should have listened to you.”
“Everybody should listen to me, all the time. They should teach it to kids in school.”