“Finally, bitch. Damn.”
A bee slammed painfully into his chest. His arm snapped up, Jack, Coke and ice flying and splashing behind him in the pool. There was a sharp rolling “crack!” across the neighborhood.
He looked down for a welt, instead found a mini-geyser of ruby erupting from his solar plexus. “Fuuuuuck!” he exhaled in a froth of bloody spittle. His hand cupped the spurting jet of blood as he tried to scream. It gurgled and died in his throat.
“Hel’! Hel’ me!” he wheezed, coughed up thick strands of acrid, rouge phlegm. The doorbell rang again.
Another bee zipped into his heart and he splashed face first into the pool, a crimson cloud blooming in aqua as he struggled for one last breath of air. But there was nothing but water.
At least he’d been The Man. For a while.
CHAPTER 29
JULY
Stockton, California
In boots, jeans and a dirt-streaked T-shirt soaked with sweat he made his way through sun-dappled woods, the beat-up, beige guitar case swinging against his knee. He had picked up the case at a pawnshop in Medford, Oregon, gutted the felt and then secured his instrument with two bungee cords taut around stock and barrel. Out of place here among the trees but not as much as a marine-issue gun case would be.
McConnell stopped, scanned the woods, glancing back up the hillside at the Mansard-roofed revivals and split-level ranchers abandoned in various phases of construction that festooned the ridge that rose over Pete Jackson’s suburb. One of those future fascist communities that would probably have all those fascist rules; no fences, no basketball hoops, no large dogs, no charcoal grills. No American fun. Hell on earth, it had served his purpose.
All quiet, save the birds. No movement, not even a breeze. He continued to the rented Taurus further down the hill.
Mitch’s schedule for Jackson was work-based and incomplete. McConnell had wanted to tail him for a few days but was on a schedule of his own, had to be further south sooner than later, that business likely much trickier. If opportunity presented itself, he would take the shot, if not he would leave it for his return trip back north. Or so he told himself. He still harbored misgivings, not that Mitch was wrong or Jackson was innocent of his brother’s murder. But not being innocent wasn’t equivalent to being guilty. Discernment illusive as it was elusive; he was in that no-man’s shadowland between black-and-white belief and the grayscale world.
Around midnight last night he had parked and climbed up the hill to where the community gate should be, waited for security or vandals or kids looking for a place to party or park and was met with only silence save the faint sound of far-off highway traffic. Guitar case in hand and CamelBak over shoulder he humped the two hundred meters by starlight and took up residence on the second floor of a half-finished Craftsman just off to the left of line of sight of Jackson’s. Quiet as a mouse he arranged stacks of sheetrock so that he would only be visible if someone climbed a ladder and looked directly at him. He retrieved the rifle, hid the case and wiggling back on elbow and knee into the pocket, settled in to wait. He had no idea that wait would be as long and uncomfortable as it was.
Jackson’s house was dark until around two a.m. when a BMW pulled into the driveway, its driver exiting with what looked like takeout. McConnell watched the lights come on downstairs through the rifle scope. He couldn’t see Jackson, but through the windows that opened onto the back deck of Jackson’s house he spied the TV changing; SportsCenter, a cheesy Snipes action-flick, settling on some Skin-e-Max soft porn. The walls were covered in nightscapes and city walks, couples on the beach at sunset, O’Keeffe prints. Who knew war profiteers were such romantics? Mitch’s info was that Jackson was a bachelor, and his house confirmed as much; no family pictures anywhere, no kid toys in the backyard pool. No wife, no kids, just two million ill-gotten dollars in a Panamanian bank account. And a much too large house. Why did one man need all that living space?
He remembered he was the sole occupant of over four thousand feet, himself. Excepting the dog. And two bastard cats. And for the moment their babysitter. Hadn’t had a woman at the house in years and when he finally did he was a thousand miles away. He couldn’t say who was more pathetic, him or the man he was about kill watching porn.
He never got the shot. At least not then.
After an hour the TV turned off, the drapes pulled closed. Lights came on upstairs and five minutes later the same lights went out.
As he stretched his back and drained his bladder, McConnell weighed going in through the glass slider and taking Jackson out while he slept with his silenced pistol. More than likely Jackson had a firearm of his own, not to mention a security system, he had spied a suspect sticker on a window. And there was a reason he had bought the rifle. It put distance between himself and the target, created more space for escape and eliminated possible DNA at the scene. Okay there were three good reasons.
He returned to the sheetrock bed and dozed fitfully until a murder of crows cawed at the sunrise.
Stiff and sore he surveyed the scene. A few lights here and there, mostly the burb was quiet. He considered calling it quits.
Was still considering it three hours later when the suburb came alive; dogs out for their morning glory, kids drifting into backyard and pool, road warriors taking up the mower, soccer moms hosing down the SUV, older folk toiling in the garden.
Jackson’s residence remained still as death.
The morning chill graduated to warm then elevated to stifling as the day crept onward. The crows now nowhere to be seen, the air turned heavy and lifeless save for flies and hornets that buzzed as he lusted for the mocking blue pools and the cruel glee of sprinklers below. His CamelBak empty, he was parched, precious sweat seeping out his pores, his shirt clinging to his back and his feet burning in their boots. Ribs aching from lying on the hard sheetrock for so long he rolled over, checked his brother’s watch, not for the first time wondering just what the hell he was doing there. He decided to pack it in. He rolled back over, took a quick look through the scope and changed his mind.
Some tweens in a backyard were playing in the pool. Next to the pool was a table and atop that table several Slurpees with a jolly fat kid contentedly sucking away at one. He remembered riding to 7-Eleven with Sean, first on their Mongoose BMX, later on their Yamaha 100s for Slurpees of their own. Good memories. The kids below would probably count this a good one, too. Might be the last good thing they thought of, all growed up, serving in yet another war—pick a spot, throw a dart at a map; killed because Pete Jackson or some other asshole sold them out for a big-screen fucking TV and cheap prints of flower vaginas. The world was colorful after all.
When Jackson stepped out onto the back deck in his swim trunks, drink in hand, rubbing his belly, McConnell allowed himself a moment of optimism that quickly dissipated as his target disappeared beneath an oversized umbrella, visible only from the knees down. He ran the math off a knee, anyway. Four hundred and fifty-one meters.
When Jackson slipped into the water like a lethargic gator, crabbed onto an air mattress, McConnell wiped the sweat from his eye, swallowed what saliva he had left down a dry, swollen gullet and ran the formula again: Jackson from crotch to head an eighth of a meter, times the constant of a thousand equaled eight hundred divided by one and eight tenths mils…Four hundred and forty-four meters.
It was a good shot. And he took it.
Jackson had shifted but the bullet found him anyway. He bolted another round into the chamber and fired again. When he was sure of the kill he pulled back and saw a red convertible parked in the driveway behind the black BMW. A visitor? He dug out the squirt bottle from his bag, squeezed bleach all over the sheetrock, secured the guitar case and made for the car.
At the Ford now, he checked his surroundings again before loading the guitar case and CamelBak in the trunk, sliding himself into the driver’s and throwing it in drive while simultaneously pouring a bottle of water down his turgid throat. The winding road spilled him out at the botto
m of the hill onto Alamar Boulevard. He took a right, merged with traffic, mindful of the speed limit. He had timed it yesterday. In forty seconds he was back on I-5. He saw no police, heard no ambulance.
John McConnell headed south.
CHAPTER 30
JULY
Bandon, Oregon
Ely Barringer was having an off day. He couldn’t do shit with the five, the seven was slicing into the trees, he’d probably have more luck with the putter if he shoved it up one of two bimbos’ asses and had her wiggle around the goddamn green.
“I can’t swing for shit today, Don,” he confessed as he chipped away on the tenth. He walked over to the golf cart where the two girls in minidresses, fake tits at attention, were giggling about their nails or shopping or blowjobs and tossed back the rest of his Chivas on the rocks. He found the blonde attractive, well, the blonder blonde.
The tide was rolling back in with big, bold, booming waves, the breeze off the Pacific steady but light, a few puffy cumuli steering clear of the golden disc embedded in all that vivid refracted blue.
“Hell, Ely, you’re up four strokes.” Tombari grinned. Tall, blond, not looking a day over thirty-five though well into his fifties, Don Tombari, emperor of affluence, prince of prosperity, lord of the lobbyists and CEO of the Norton Corporation was also a golf fanatic, mountain climber, yachtsman, pilot, and fancied himself a Renaissance man who wrote mawkish poetry as bland as it was pretentious. If he had actually attended any classes before graduating Yale it was lost to mythos but, to give credit where due, Tombari was infamously shrewd and abhorrently greedy though not for money, born into plenty of that, he sought prestige and power and everything those two aphrodisiacs brought with them.
This little junket was his idea. Todd Whiting, Tombari’s feudal lord of the energy division, was due in around noon on his Lear. Whiting was UCLA, an All-American, then Harvard Biz, had a governorship and possibly the Oval in his future. And with him came Danny Jones; Cornell, the token Jew of their foursome, the whiny prick knew his numbers, kept their little organization in the black with kid gloves, had proven he knew how to keep his mouth shut in front of a senate inquiry.
Ely knew all his people well. Their past that made them, their present problems, their dreams of the future. He made it his business to know. It helped to guide their behavior. Or, put another way, it curbed betrayal.
Tombari drew his nine, looking the quintessential golfer, his perfect broad-shouldered stance, his wrinkle-free pink golf shirt, powder-blue golf pants. Might’ve made a decent officer had some D.I. drilled his ass until he developed a spine. He drew back and glided through his swing. The ball arced, sailed through the coastal air, sure of purpose, fell back to earth and bounced lightly upon the green to rest not a yard shy of the hole.
“Nice goddamn shot,” Barringer conceded.
Tombari and his damn grin.
“Why don’t you girls go on up to the clubhouse.”
The less blonde batted her baby blues. Wonderful little dimples, nice legs. He watched them bounce and giggle up the green until they were out of earshot. Maybe he’d tell Don Tombari to go fuck his Ivy League-self or better yet his wife and he would take both of them to his room. Of course, what he’d do with them then was another question.
“You sure know how to pick ’em, Don.”
“My gift to you, Ely.”
Barringer teed up his ball, stood straight and gave a few calculated swings at the air. “I recall a gift I gave you. Forty-eight billion I convinced the Pentagon to send your way for drones.”
“We’re on schedule. What’s eating you, Ely?”
“What’s ‘eating me’ is that I can’t properly fight a global war on terror if I can’t find the goddamn terrorists in the first fucking place. What’s bothering me is the fucking UN up America’s ass every other goddamn week. What’s irritating me is Amnesty International who’d just as soon cut their own daughter’s head off than call a damn jihadi a jihadi. But you know what, Don? What really gets my dander is when someone takes money from my pocket without even giving me a reach-around.”
“Hold on, Ely—”
“Hold on to what, Don? My dick? ’Cause that’s what I’m left with on this forty-eight billion.”
“You know it has to go through channels. Danny’s working it.”
Donald Tombari, who fired people who made a hundred times in a lunch deal what the General took home in all his thirty-five-year military career, wilted beneath Barringer’s glare.
He gave it a moment. Fifteen long ones. “Good to hear you’re on top of things, Don.”
“Jesus, Ely,” Tombari said, visibly shaken. No one stared him down like that.
Barringer snorted satisfactorily.
Tombari’s satellite phone rang. “Yeah.” His tone went obsequious. “Yes sir, the General’s right here, let me…. Uh-huh. I see. Repeat that last please? DCIS…sniffing…all over. I’ll…” Whoever it was hung up. Tombari tossed the phone onto the golf cart and scowled at the seascape.
“Was that his Highness?” Barringer didn’t really need to ask.
Tombari faced him. “He said someone shot your boy at the depot.”
CHAPTER 31
JULY
San Diego, California
It was just past the witching hour, when witches and magic came alive. Or so his mother had said. Witches were all long dead, the church had seen to that. Their magic the sin that led them to their painful, fiery end. Still burning in the lake of fire, he could hear their screams if he tried hard enough. Although he no longer heard his angels as he sat alone in the dark.
The wing of the jail was too quiet. Isolated from the other prisoners for his own safety, that’s what his public defender had said. He had also told him he would be going home today, the lawyer as astonished at that turn of events as Travis Parish, though for much different reasons. He still couldn’t account for why he blatantly risked the cameras at the Wal-Mart. Why he left his soiled pliers unsanitized. Why he had failed to register as a sex offender. It was almost as if he wanted to be caught.
But the Lord had other plans. How else to explain that out of eleven cameras not one caught him with his starlet tucked under his coat? Or that his unclean instrument had disappeared from evidence? The Lord worked in mysterious ways, yet there was no mystery here.
Travis Parish was to continue his good work.
And yet his choir remained silent. Why?
He prayed on it. Night after night, on his knees, beseeching revelation, whispering the name of every one of his angels who had sacrificed themselves in the name of holy art.
…Vanessa, twelve. Mandy, nine. Consuela, five. Aesha, three…
And tonight God revealed His will. Parish’s angels had not abandoned him. Their sweet song had only gone silent because that choir was filled. Bless their little hearts, their song was for Him alone now.
He felt at peace with that understanding. No rest for the wicked, his mama had said that too. He began drafting his next script, his mind’s eye already drawing storyboards.
He sighed. He had his work cut out for him. God always expected man to do better. This choir would have to be bigger. Grander.
Sergeant Alejandro Fuentes yanked hard on the prisoner.
Fuentes was good sized; six-one, one-ninety, well muscled, he worked out five times a week in the gym, ran a few miles with his boys when they didn’t have baseball. He took pride in his fit condition not because of the bountiful looks the ladies threw his way, blessed as he was with a beautiful wife and four equally beautiful children at home, but because he wanted to be the best cop he could be, his twelve years of service distinguished by the highest marks. He loved his job, and loved protecting the people.
That made today hard. Hard to do. Harder to understand.
The hulk that frog-marched between them made him shrivel up inside and he marveled how it had gone so horribly wrong. He had prayed for a miracle, prayed for understanding. Receiving neither, he had been forced to a
ccept the Lord’s work performed as it was in His infinitely mysterious ways.
“Move your ass!” Sauce shoved The Pincer forward. Even Sauce looked small next to the plodding mountain, his push barely denting the elephantine mass, certainly not propelling it any faster forward.
Parish only smiled.
“Just keep moving,” Kramer sourly spat, pushing up his glasses.
“What the fuck you lookin’ at?” demanded Trujillo.
It was hard to ignore The Pincer’s unsettling smile and black-as-plague eyes suffused with evil secrets. When you’ve been a cop long enough you recognize the crazy ones, which could save your life, and the evil ones, which saves your soul. Parish was the devil. There was no doubt about that. You could hear the shrill screams of tormented children brought to agony by his huge, malevolent hands.
Fuentes ordered the prisoner to stop. They were at the door to the back steps. A short drive to the jail to unlock the cuffs and the devil would be released to prey again upon the precious and innocent.
“Was’ up, Fuentes?” Kramer was anxious to get to the bar and drink this day away.
“He needs the Kevlar.”
“Fuck he does,” Trujillo said, the vest in his hand.
“C’mon, it’s protocol.”
Trujillo unkindly shoved the vest over Parish’s head.
Parish grinned. He liked to come across as dim but Fuentes knew better.
“You know we’re gonna be watchin’ you like a hawk,” Fuentes said.
Parish gave a carefree shrug. Hadn’t mattered in the past. Why would it now?
“He ain’t lyin’,” Kramer said. “People want you dead. Once you hit the street…” He shrugged. “Hell, you could fall down some stairs right now, break both legs, fuck up some ribs and bleed out.”
“Enough,” Fuentes said. Slipping into a stairwell and beating the life out of their prisoner was tempting but none of them were killers. None of the deputies were, anyway. “Let’s just get this done.”
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