by Jeff Shelby
“Home.”
“Thought we might go make a run at Deacon Moreno.”
It seemed like a month since I’d first heard Moreno’s name. I still hadn’t come up with a reason for why Moreno would come after me, other than my looking for Linc.
“Okay. Where are you?”
“Just dropped Dana off,” he said, and I could tell he was smiling.
“Jesus.”
“She did mention something about me performing like the Messiah.”
“I’ll bet.”
“I need something to eat before we go do this.”
“Shocker.”
“In-N-Out in Mission Valley?”
“Be there in half an hour.”
I brought Carter up to speed while we ate. I told him about my meeting with Famazio and my overnight encounter with Lonnie and Mo, as well as my meeting with the Pluto aunt.
An hour later we were headed south on the 805 in my Jeep. He fidgeted uncomfortably in the passenger seat, tugging at his corduroy shorts and the chest of his Sex Waxx T-shirt like they didn’t fit.
“What’s wrong with you?” I asked.
“Nothing.”
“Then why are you acting like you’re a spaz?”
He glanced out his side window. “I’m getting impatient.”
“We should be there in about fifteen minutes.”
“No,” he said. “Not Moreno. With these skinhead fucks.”
“If you’d been at my place last night, I guess you would’ve been happy, then.”
He ran a hand through his bright blond hair. “I’m not kidding, Noah.” He turned to me. “They put you in the hospital once and you got lucky last night.” His eyes hardened. “They gotta go, dude.”
I glanced in the mirror and moved over a lane. “It’ll happen.”
“When?”
“Soon.”
He shook his head and looked back out his window. I knew he wasn’t satisfied with my answer, but I didn’t have another one. Lonnie and Mo were on my list of things to take care of, but I needed to know where they fit in before making them a priority.
Just south of the zoo, we took Highway 94 east for several miles and exited at Euclid Avenue. We were in the heart of southeast San Diego, perhaps the most dangerous part of the city. Gangs, poverty, and indifference had made it a part of the metropolitan sprawl that most chose to ignore and avoid.
Willie, Carter’s pal from the diner, had given him an Encanto address for Moreno, a small hillside neighborhood of low-slung houses surrounded by broken sidewalks and graffiti. Brown lawns, cracked asphalt, and broken windows were the dominant features of a community left for dead. In the late eighties, a kid named Sagon Penn had killed a cop with the cop’s own gun during a traffic stop and Encanto had since become synonymous with violence.
Carter directed me through the side streets off Euclid until we hit Radio Drive. Moreno’s house was in the middle of the block, a small square ranch painted a blue and gray that had probably been pleasant about fifteen years prior. A rusted-out Chevy Chevelle missing its hood was parked in the driveway, the small lawn next to it a mixture of brown grass and dirt. The iron bars on the windows practically screamed sad and hopeless.
I parked the Jeep across the street and looked at the house, completely devoid of the care you’d see in a home that people were proud to live in. Even my mother’s house appeared more hospitable than this.
Carter glanced down the street. “How many houses are watching us right now, you think?”
I glanced down the street. “I saw curtains in two different windows move as we came down the street.”
“So I say we double that and we’re close.”
Neighborhoods like this policed themselves and I knew they wouldn’t take kindly to two outsiders showing up unannounced. We needed to be aware of what was going on around us.
I grabbed my 9mm Glock 17 from under my seat. “I’ll take the house. You got the street?”
“Giant white guy hanging out in the driveway,” he said, checking the magazine in his.45 HK Mark 23. “Think anyone’ll notice?”
“Not if we get lucky.”
He snapped the magazine back in place and racked the slide. “Can’t remember the last time that happened.”
I got out of the Jeep and Carter followed. He hung back as I made my way up the drive and to the front door. The socket where the doorbell should’ve been was just a hole with wires. I rapped on the metal screen door.
A moment later, the doorknob twisted and I took a step back.
The door opened just enough for an attractive young girl to step into the opening and look at me. She looked to be nineteen or twenty, with light brown skin and striking amber-colored eyes. Her long black hair was cornrowed into thin tight braids that fell over her shoulder. She wore a red T-shirt and low-riding white cotton shorts.
She eyed me warily. “Yeah?”
“I’m looking for Deacon,” I said.
“So?”
“Is he here?”
Her mouth twisted into a frown. “I look like his secretary or something?”
“I wouldn’t know.”
She sighed, annoyed. “Deacon ain’t here.”
“Know where I could find him?”
She leaned against the edge of the door, making no move to open the screen door between us. “Who’re you?”
“I’m an investigator,” I said.
“You don’t seem like no cop.”
“I’m not.” I pulled a card out of my pocket and held it up. “I’m a private investigator.”
She studied the card through the screen, then moved her eyes back to me, unimpressed. “What you want with my brother?”
I dropped the card back in my pocket. “Just want to ask him a few questions.”
She looked past me, over my shoulder. “That big dude with you?”
I turned around to see Carter inspecting the beaten-down Chevelle in the driveway. “Yeah.”
She blinked her eyes and ran a hand over her braids. “Think he gonna protect you if somebody come up on you?”
“Is that what’s gonna happen?”
She snorted. “That’s your own problem.”
Good to know.
“I didn’t know Deacon had a sister,” I said, trying to sound friendly and unthreatening.
She thought about it, then nodded. “Yeah. I’m Malia.”
“Malia, can you tell me where Deacon might be?”
“Deacon fuck you over or something?”
She kept answering my questions with her own and I tried to remain patient. “No. I just wanna ask him a couple questions.”
“About what?”
“A case I’m working.”
She sighed again and rolled her eyes. “Look, I know my big brother’s a fuckup, alright? I know he does all kinds of shit with that gang of his.” She shook her head. “Dumbass motherfucker that he is.”
“You guys aren’t close?”
She folded her arms across her chest. “Deacon’s my brother. But I hate all this shit he’s into. Gonna get himself done like the rest of these fools in this neighborhood. He’s never going to get himself out of this place.”
“What about you?” I asked. “Are you getting out?”
I heard more footsteps coming from behind the door and my hand slid around my back to my gun. Malia ducked behind the door and I heard a muffled exchange, but couldn’t make out what was being said. She came back into the doorway.
Something had changed in her expression and she stood up a little straighter. “One more semester and I’m done at State. I’ll have my degree and I’m outta here.”
She saw my attention was on whoever was behind the door.
“And relax, dude,” she said, shaking her head. “It ain’t my brother in here. We’re studying for a chemistry exam.”
I watched the door, but nothing happened. I relaxed a little. “Chemistry?”
“I’m a physical science major.”
We looked at e
ach other for a long moment. I finally pulled the card out of my pocket again. “Can I give you this? You can pass it on to Deacon and tell him I’m looking for him.”
“I ain’t opening the screen,” she said, her words firm. “I don’t know you. Leave it outside and I’ll get it after you go.”
I stuck the card between the screen and the doorframe. “Fair enough.”
“Don’t count on him calling you,” she said.
“He’s not in trouble, Malia. At least not with me.”
She smirked, looking at me like I’d just made some outrageous claim. “So you come into my neighborhood, this neighborhood, and expect me to believe Deacon ain’t done nothin’ wrong to get you here?” She laughed softly. “Nice try, mister.”
“I just need to talk to him,” I said.
“Noah,” Carter called from behind me.
I turned around. He was focused on the end of the street. Three teenage boys were making their way toward us.
“You better go,” Malia said, seeing them as well. She stepped back and shut the front door.
I walked down to the sidewalk to Carter. The boys were slowly ambling up the street, all of them dressed in baggy jeans and polo shirts, trying to look casual. They stopped when I joined Carter.
“Get anything?” he asked, not moving his eyes from our friends.
“Nothing.”
“Man, you are so good at your job.”
“Thanks.”
The boys were now pretending to check out an old Cadillac parked on the street, engaged in an animated conversation. Their words didn’t make it to us.
“The smart thing to do would be to get in your car and go,” Carter said.
“Yes, it would.”
“But you got nothing from the house.”
“No, I didn’t.”
The vein in his neck pulsed. “So we gotta go talk to these guys, don’t we?”
“Afraid so.”
The conversation among the three stopped. They were about seventy-five yards away. They returned our stares.
Carter looked at me. “There may be more. In the houses. These guys may be decoys. I’ll go behind you a little bit, so I can watch.”
I nodded, the muscles in my back and stomach tightening. I flexed my trigger finger, knowing that it might get put to use.
“You ready?” Carter asked.
I wasn’t, but it didn’t matter.
We started walking.
Twenty-six
The mild afternoon sun felt like a heat lamp on my neck as Carter and I walked down the street toward the boys. All three were about six feet tall, lanky, and athletic. Two had their heads shaved completely, the other an Afro that was teased nearly two feet off his head. The two shaved heads wore similar navy polos, the Afro a bright green one. The only difference I could see between the two shaved heads was that one of them had a gold hoop in each ear. The baggy jeans that they all sported looked designer. Their faces belied their tough-guy poses, though, and I put each of them at about fifteen years old.
“What’s going on?” I asked, stopping a few feet short of them and trying to sound relaxed.
The kid with the Afro stepped forward and shrugged his shoulders. “Nothin’, man. What’s up with you?”
I couldn’t think of anything better than the truth. “I’m trying to find Deacon.”
The kid laughed, exposing a mouthful of white teeth. “Like you and he all tight and shit, right?”
The two boys behind him snickered.
“No,” I said. “I just need to ask him some questions.”
“You ain’t no five-O,” the one with the earrings said. “’Cause you can’t wear no shorts if you wearin’ a badge.”
“I’m an investigator.”
The Afro lifted his chin and looked past me. “That your partner?”
“Something like that,” I said, glad to know Carter was still behind me. “Any idea where I can find Deacon?”
The kid put a finger to his chin and pretended to think. “Hmmm.”
“Hey, Carlos,” the one without the earrings said. “I know where he might be.”
Carlos smiled at me. “Where’s that, Reg?”
Reg looked at me. “Mission Beach, man. He love it down there.”
They all laughed. I did not.
Reg hit his twin in the shoulder. “Rudy, man. What’s the name of that place he digs so much?”
Rudy grinned, a silver tooth in the middle of the grin. “Think it’s called the SandDune or somethin’ dumbass like that. Someplace you only find dumbass white dudes.”
The anger percolated inside my body. They were sending a message. They wanted me to know that they had either been a part of or knew about the drive-by. The adrenaline spiked in my veins.
“Takes a lot of balls to shoot at somebody out of a car after asking for directions,” I said. “You guys are real big-time. Deacon let you wipe his ass, too?”
The smiles disappeared. Carlos took a step toward me. “What you say, motherfucker?”
Carter, who was standing next to me, grunted. “What he said was, you guys are giant, and when I say giant, I mean huge pussies.”
Fury raged in Carlos’s eyes. “Hey, fuck you, Hulk Hogan.”
“I’m not into guys, Carlos,” Carter said. “Particularly ugly ones.”
Carlos took another step forward and his hand went to his waistband. I lunged at him, grabbed him by the throat, swept his legs with one of mine, and dropped him onto his back.
“Anybody reaches any further and they get an extra hole to stick their finger in,” Carter said, coming up next to me, his gun aimed at the two standing boys.
Reg moved his hand away from his body, but Rudy hesitated.
“You pull that thing out, bud, you better hope it’s bigger than mine,” Carter said to Rudy. “I’m fast and I don’t miss.”
Rudy stared at him for a moment, then eased his empty hand around to where it could be seen.
I looked down at Carlos, dug my knee into his chest, and pressed my right hand down on his throat. “You owe me.”
Carlos’s cool quickly evaporated. His eyes bulged and sweat formed on his forehead. “Bullshit.”
“Bullshit? You come down to my neighborhood and shoot the place up? Try to kill me? Which part is bullshit?” I pressed harder on his chest.
“Man, you’re chokin’ him,” Rudy said.
“Yeah, I am. And I’m gonna kill him if someone doesn’t start talking.” I smiled down at Carlos, squeezing his throat a little harder, his larynx feeling like a rock under my palm. “Right here in the street. In front of all your friends.”
Carlos kicked his legs and slapped his arms wildly at my sides, all to no avail. He tried to speak, but I was cutting off the air and he gagged. His eyes darted from side to side, tears spilling out of the corners.
I looked up at his friends. “Somebody better start fucking talking.”
They looked at each other, unsure what to do. They didn’t want to be bullied, but they didn’t want their leader to die, either. Their thug status was disappearing as reality turned them into scared kids.
“Deacon’s over at Biddly’s, man,” Reg finally said, his voice a little higher than before.
I relaxed my grip slightly on Carlos’s throat. “Keep talking.”
“It’s a liquor store,” Reg said quickly. “Down on Euclid, past the school.”
“Shit,” Rudy whispered, clearly worried about the repercussions of giving up Deacon.
“He hang out there every day,” Reg said, unable to stop himself now. “In the parkin’ lot.”
I looked back down at Carlos. Tears were running down his face. His chest fought for air beneath my knee. The fury that I’d seen in his eyes had been replaced by terror.
“You are one lucky fuck,” I said to him.
“You two on the ground,” Carter said. “Now.”
Reg and Rudy dropped to the street on their stomachs. Carter walked over to them, removed their guns, and had
them place their hands behind their backs. He dropped the small pistols in his pocket and walked back to me.
I took my hand off Carlos’s throat, but kept my knee in his chest. “If I ever see you again, Carlos, I will finish this.” I looked him right in the eye. “You understand?”
He couldn’t stem the tears, but he gave a slight nod and turned his face away from mine.
I reached under him, removed the small handgun from his waistband, and stood up. “Roll over and place your hands on your back.”
He did as I said.
Carter and I backed up quickly, not taking our eyes off them as we backpedaled toward the Jeep. The longer we stuck around, the bigger targets we became.
“I take it back,” Carter said. “You are good at your job.”
As we neared the Jeep, I saw Malia Moreno’s face in the front window of the Moreno home. She was staring at us, her eyes wide in surprise.
I looked back down the street. None of the boys had moved, their faces still pressed to the asphalt.
I took a deep breath, trying to exhale the adrenaline and anger that had taken over my body. The fingers that I had wrapped around Carlos’s throat tingled.
“Let’s go find Deacon,” I said as we reached the Jeep. “Before he finds us.”
Twenty-seven
The perspiration on my back glued my T-shirt to my seat as Carter and I drove to Biddly’s.
“Think they’ll try to beat us to Moreno?” I asked.
Carter shrugged. “Maybe, but probably not. They’ll have to come up with a story about what happened first. They aren’t gonna just tell him we took them down without a fight. On their street.” He shook his head. “They’ll just wait and hope Moreno kills us.”
“Well, that makes me feel better.”
“I’m like a living, breathing Hallmark card.”
“Just like.”
We turned left on Euclid. Half-empty strip malls lined the street, the traffic whizzing by them as if they didn’t exist.
“Moreno won’t be alone,” I said.
“Not a fucking chance.”
“Probably won’t be as easy to shake as the teenyboppers.”
He pulled out the guns he’d taken off of Rudy and Reg. “But, gosh. We have all these.”