Gideon

by Grant Rosenberg

  About the author

  Born and raised in San Francisco, Grant relocated to Southern California to pursue a career in television. He spent the next forty years writing and producing such shows as MacGyver, Star Trek: The Next Generation, Lois & Clark, The Outer Limits, Eureka, Lost Girl and Bitten.

  Gideon is his debut novel.

  Grant now lives in Central Oregon with his wife Marjorie and their yellow Lab, Buddy.

  GIDEON

  Grant Rosenberg

  GIDEON

  Pegasus

  PEGASUS KINDLE

  © Copyright 2020

  Grant Rosenberg

  The right of Grant Rosenberg to be identified as author of

  this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the

  Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

  All Rights Reserved

  No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication

  may be made without written permission.

  No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced,

  copied or transmitted save with the written permission of the publisher, or in accordance with the provisions

  of the Copyright Act 1956 (as amended).

  Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to

  this publication may be liable to criminal

  prosecution and civil claims for damage.

  A CIP catalogue record for this title is

  available from the British Library

  ISBN (PAPERBACK) 978 1 910903 50 6

  Pegasus is an imprint of

  Pegasus Elliot MacKenzie Publishers Ltd.

  www.pegasuspublishers.com

  First Published in 2020

  Pegasus

  Sheraton House Castle Park

  Cambridge CB3 0AX England

  Printed & Bound in Great Britain

  Dedication

  To my mother, who encouraged me to write at an early age.

  To my wife, who encouraged me to write

  at a much, much older age.

  Acknowledgements

  First and foremost, my eternal thanks to my wife Marjorie. Not only did she provide unflagging encouragement, moral and grammatical support and keen editorial suggestions, she also took over the never-ending chore of feeding, walking and housebreaking a rambunctious four-month-old puppy, allowing me time to write.

  I owe a big thanks to my family: the Monaghan clan, for reading early drafts and giving me a collective thumbs-up; and to my three daughters, Laura-Lee, Elizabeth and Megan, who stuck with me through the tumultuous times and whose diverse personalities combined to inspire a complex and multi-faceted female protagonist.

  To Dr James Guadagni, who helped me with the medical details, James Foley, who shed light on the intricasies of the California health system and to Jack Minkel and Wayne Svilar, whose help with police procedures and gang details were indispensable. Any errors in those areas are strictly mine.

  To my many friends who read an early draft and believed in me: Jim Remensperger, Dave Richardson, Chris Condit, Clain Campagna, Cheryl Abel, Sue Edwards, Garner Simmons and David Cornue. Your contributions were much appreciated.

  To two authors that I deeply respect and consider friends: Dean Koontz and Thomas Perry. After all these years, I can finally return the favor and send a novel to them.

  To all of the amazing people at Pegasus Publishing who brought me into their family and worked diligently to produce what you’re holding in your hands.

  And, finally, to the memory of my parents. They raised, nurtured and loved me unconditionally… and gave me the great gift of being born and raised in San Francisco.

  GIDEON

  PROLOGUE

  The house was an eyesore. It was the kind of house that kids passed by on Halloween. That is, if kids trick-or-treated in this neighborhood, which they didn’t. Weather beaten paint peeled away from cracked stucco. Tarpaper showed through missing roof shingles, and the lawn was a desiccated memory. Surrounded by the obligatory chain link fence, the only things missing to complete the stereotype were a battle-scarred Pit Bull snarling at passers by and neglected piles of fly-infested feces. The eight-hundred-square-foot teardown was picked up in a foreclosure sale for just under $100,000, which, given the proximity to San Francisco, seemed like a steal.

  Then again, the fact that it was located just off International Boulevard in one of the most dangerous neighborhoods in East Oakland, the price seemed a little on the high side. The residential block featured Chevys left to rust on front lawns, cramped houses where extended families took up all available floor space and spilled out into the yard with their hand-rolled smokes and 40s, and well-documented violence.

  Oakland was carved up by at least a dozen offshoots of the Crips, but this area was property of the 38th Street Locos, a violent Hispanic gang that dealt drugs, ran prostitutes and occasionally killed rivals. Most of the cinderblock walls, storefronts and rotting billboards were treated like blank canvases for the Locos’ ubiquitous tags. Oddly, one of the homes that had somehow escaped the gang’s graffiti was the crappy little chain-linked eyesore.

  The interior of the house was a depressing reflection of its outer shell. What marginally passed for a carpet was threadbare and stained with mysterious blots whose origins were too disgusting to dwell upon. It was a forensic fiesta of molds and carcinogenic spores. The once white walls were permanently coated a sickly yellow from years of smoke (tobacco and otherwise), and the furniture was a notch below the castoffs reclaimed from front yards of equally dilapidated homes. Liberal applications of duct tape were the only things keeping the furniture from disintegrating into heaps of rotted wood, frayed fabric and toxic cotton wadding.

  The current tenant fit perfectly into this suburban nightmare; a glassy eyed, chain-smoking, two-time loser who bore a striking resemblance to an aged, road company version of Jeff Spicoli. He was known as ‘Baby’, a nickname he detested, which only prompted people to use it repeatedly.

  When Baby was fifteen, he decided to get a tat “to show the world just how fucking cool” he was. After weeks of surfing the net for ideas and exotic designs, he came up with “Iceman”. It was perfect. He was chill. He was dangerous. He could hook you up. The problem was, he was none of those things, so when he showed off the new ink (done in black ‘Original Gangsta’ font) that ran from his shoulder to his elbow, his schoolmates instantly started chanting, “Ice, Ice Baby” from the lamest faux-rap song ever. That quickly got shortened to “Baby”, and the moniker stuck.

  Baby was in his late twenties, but a steady diet of Marlboro Reds, bottom-shelf booze and myriad illegally obtained pharmaceuticals gave him the sallow appearance of a man in his forties. Like his house, he was weather-beaten and missing a few teeth, the result of his chronic crack habit. He lived day-to-day, hour-to-hour, taking life one score at a time.

  Years ago, Baby had worked in the family business, but the only thing he could be counted on was his unreliability. That didn’t sit well with his father, who oversaw a multi-faceted operation and had reluctantly taken his son in to keep peace with his wife. Baby desperately wanted to make his father proud, but there were two major impediments to that storybook fantasy: one, Baby was a fuck-up; and two, his father scared the crap out of him. Baby grew up believing theirs was a normal father/son relationship. When he found out that his friends didn’t cower when their fathers came home from work, he just assumed their fathers were pussies.

  Baby had a lot of issues, one of which was a proclivity toward sudden irrational violence. Whether this was due to his upbringing, his chronic ingestion of brain-cell-killing opiates, his total disdain for social mores, or just bad genetics, he was simply too unstable to be trusted with even the most mundane aspects of the job.

  He exhausted the
last ounce of familial tolerance the day he was sent to collect money from Johnny Simons, a long-time employee with gnarled, arthritic hands and a painfully curved spine. Johnny had worked for Baby’s father for three decades, and even though he was a minor player, he was reliable as a Rolex. It just so happened that on this day, Johnny was a few hundred bucks short on a $4,500 payoff because he’d used the money to buy some medication for his diabetic wife. He swore to make up the rest the following week, with some juice, but Baby was terrified to go back to his father with a short envelope, so he did what any homicidal psycho would do. He snapped, and proceeded to beat Johnny with a tape-wrapped length of pipe, breaking Johnny’s arm, shattering his orbital bone and splintering a couple ribs.

  To keep the peace, the father paid Johnny’s hospital bill (which ran into five figures), made a generous cash settlement to his wife and family, and informed all of his associates that his crazy-ass son would no longer be a problem.

  Baby was cut out of the business until he could manage to get his shit together. He was dumbstruck. What the fuck did he do wrong? His father could only shake his head in wonderment; how could he possibly have spawned this idiot?

  Baby had no choice but to accept the mandate. It was either banishment or a short ride out to the wetlands. He was exiled to the house in East Oakland and ordered to keep a low profile. Maybe one of these days he’d clean up his act and prove his worth to the family. It was an extremely unlikely prospect, but Baby lived in hope.

  He vowed that he’d cut out the drugs (okay, cut down on the drugs) and eventually make his way back to the family. That was almost a year ago, and he had given up that pretense by day two. Baby got a monthly “allowance” from his cousin, who was the only friend he had. In return, Baby did occasional favors for his cousin, oftimes exercising his violent nature. As far as Baby was concerned, he’d proven himself over and over. He’d even killed for the family, and in his mind that meant he was a “made man”. In reality, that only made him a bigger liability.

  Baby’s cousin was late with this month’s cash. In fact, Baby hadn’t heard from him for a few weeks, but Baby didn’t worry. He’d show. He always did. In the meantime, Baby had his pizzo (glass meth pipe) and his 65-inch flat screen. With access to seven channels of ESPN, HBO and an extensive collection of porn, he’d get by.

  Baby thumbed his disposable Bic, put the flame to the bowl of his pipe, and took a deep hit of smoke that had the aroma of burning plastic. His eyes lost focus and his brain swam in turgid waters. This was quality shit and gave him an immediate intense high. For a moment, Baby thought about calling Sherri to see if she wanted to party. Like all of “his women”, Sherri was a crack whore who’d perform any perverse act in exchange for a few tokes of rock. But he was quickly coming down and the thought of having Sherri passed out on his sofa while he was trying to watch a football game turned him off the idea. Last time she was there, she puked all over his classic throwback Raiders’ jersey.

  He took a long pull from a lukewarm sixteen-ounce Bud and contemplated reloading his oil burner, when he heard a car pull to a stop outside.

  Baby snapped his head around. Paranoia struck deep even when he wasn’t blazed, but when he was riding the dragon his mind was a nest of insane rats running for shelter from the Orkin Man.

  He lunged for the sofa and jammed his hand down between the sagging cushions, desperately searching, but all he came up with was a broken cigarette, a crumbled dollar bill and something that might have once been a French fry. A second wave of panic washed over him as he tried to remember what he did with his piece.

  This sudden anxiety was due to him not fulfilling the arrangement that he had with Juan “Looney” Chavez, the 38th Street Locos boss. For a few 8-balls of coke each month, the gang left Baby alone as long as he didn’t traffic in their ’hood. Unfortunately, Baby had binged and snorted the most recent payment. To compound the issue, Looney wasn’t known for his benevolence when it came to extending credit. The irony of Baby’s situation was glaringly obvious, which made it all the more inconceivable that it never crossed his feeble mind.

  A car door slammed. Shit, shit, shit! Where the fuck was his goddamn gun?

  The knock on the door literally made him jump, and a few drops of urine leaked from his shriveled penis, dotting his jeans. His thoughts were jumbled, his heart racing. Where the hell was…?

  Behind the sofa! Last night he dropped it behind the sofa! The second knock on the door was more persistent. Baby frantically shoved the couch out of the way, and there it was: the Glock he bought off a homeless guy last month in the Home Depot parking lot. The moment Baby wrapped his nicotine-stained fingers around the well-worn grip, he was flush with a confidence he otherwise lacked. If they wanted to fuck with him, he’d kill the cocksuckers. Screw these bangers trying to strong-arm him. He’d had enough of their shit.

  He was the Iceman.

  Baby sidled over to the door and noticed his hand was shaking uncontrollably. Despite a desire to sound tough and in command, the noise from his throat came out like Barney Fife asking Thelma Lou to a barn dance.

  “Who is it?”

  From the other side of the door came the voice of a teenage boy going through puberty, “Delivery from the Golden Palace.”

  Food! Suddenly, Baby was starving. He was about to throw the door wide open when he stopped to think. Did he order food? Was this a trick? Could it be Looney? Cops? Feds? Anyone could be standing out there. Just then, a brilliant idea crept into his addled mind. “Leave it on the porch.”

  “You owe fourteen fifty-six.”

  Shit! What now? Maybe fire a few rounds through the door. He looked at the gun in his sweaty hand and had a flash of realization – he’d never even fired it. He didn’t know if it worked. Fuck! Why was he having those lucid thoughts now? He liked it better when his mind was a smoke-filled cockpit with no one sitting at the controls.

  He slunk over to the window and parted the grimy blinds. From this angle he couldn’t see the porch, but he got a clear look at the dented Toyota Tercel parked at the curb. No self-respecting banger would drive a piece of shit like that, and it definitely wasn’t wheels for a Fed.

  Another knock was followed by the teen’s chirpy voice, “Hey, mister. Do you want the food or not?” Baby caught a faint whiff of garlic and peppers and he began salivating like a Bernese Mountain Dog about to tear into a raw steak.

  The hell with it. If someone out there wanted to kill him bad enough, he may as well face it head-on. That would be better than starving to death, right?

  He opened the door a crack and was immediately relieved to see a skinny, pimply faced kid named Sherman Berger, wearing a Golden Palace tee-shirt and holding a greasy brown take-out bag.

  “You okay, mister?”

  As Baby dug into his pocket, Sherm caught a glimpse of the Glock in his other hand and the color drained from Sherm’s face.

  Baby held out a few crumbled bills. Sherm took the cash as Baby grabbed the bag and slammed the door.

  Sherm attended College Prep High School in Oakland and had only recently started working as a delivery boy for the restaurant. Despite the fact his parents lived in Piedmont and were loaded, Sherm was doing this job at their urging to teach him about the “real world” and make his own money for college. This was his first trip into East Oakland, and if it was any indication of what the rest of the summer held in store for him, Sherm was willing to forego college altogether. Ten dollars an hour, plus mileage, wasn’t worth getting shot.

  He smoothed out the bills in his hand. Two fives. This wasted crack-head stiffed him almost five bucks, not to mention a tip. Sherm would have to make up the balance out of his own pocket. He had a fleeting thought of knocking on the door and demanding the rest of the cash, but his parents hadn’t raised a fool.

  As he turned and walked away, he muttered “asshole” under his breath. If he had any guts he would’ve screamed it aloud, but Sherm was blessed with an innate sense of self-preservation. So inst
ead, he quickened his pace, leapt into his Tercel and angrily peeled away from the curb.

  Crack generally leads to a loss of appetite, but when you forget to eat for a few days and the sticky aroma of garlic chicken fills your nostrils, your stomach takes charge and commands your brain to override the drug-dulled synapses and get some sustenance into your body.

  Baby flopped back onto the sofa, ripped open the bag and pulled out the container of chicken. There was a superfluous set of chopsticks (who the fuck used chopsticks anyway?) in the bag, along with a plastic fork. He grabbed the fork and greedily shoveled a mouthful of steaming food into his meth-blemished maw.

  The first taste was heaven. The combination of salty, garlicky, sweet and sour was unbeatable. Suddenly, the future seemed brighter. His cuz had given him assurances that things were looking up. In the last few months there’d been some reorganization within the family business, and Baby was confident that if he stayed in his cousin’s good graces, he’d be welcomed back from this hellhole anytime now. Back to an unending supply of quality drugs, booze and babes. No more crack whores. No more scratching around for kibbles and bits. He’d get a new pad, a new ride, sharp threads. The Iceman returneth.

  Baby had barely swallowed when he crammed another large forkful into his mouth. As he chewed, something suddenly felt wrong. He didn’t understand what was happening as a wave of “oh, shit” washed over him.

  He forced down the food in one mammoth, painful gulp and then a strange look crossed his face – an expression somewhere between awareness and panic.