He disconnected and held up the phone. Numbly, she touched it. He released it and let his hands fall.
From around the corner bolted a frantic ball of fur, mewing hysterically at the piercing pain in her eardrums. Rita skidded to a stop, scrambling up Dillon’s knee. Automatically, he cupped the cat safely against his shirt. He half-turned in the direction she’d come.
“Who the fuck let the cat out?” he bellowed.
Rosalie’s call was the third received by the 911 dispatchers.
~*~
Jeanie lay in the hallway. Sorrel crouched over her, her hair a curtain around Jeanie’s face. One hand, slippery with blood, pressed Jeanie’s throat gauging her pulse, as the other tossed folds of Dillon’s trench coat over the still form. She avoided looking at Jeanie’s right thigh where Mackie worked frantically, applying pressure to the gaping wound. Blood spattered Dillon’s trench coat. Dillon leaned against the wall, head down, thumbs hooked into the top of his belt. Randy stood next to him, shoulder to shoulder.
“I’m gonna kill you,” said Sorrel. They were nearly the only words she’d spoken in the last ten minutes. She spoke solely to the dark-headed kid standing on Randy’s other side. “Soon’s she’s safe, no matter how long it takes, I’m gonna kill you.” Her chant grew ragged and rose to a shriek. “Don’t you got no clue what she does for us? She plants acorns, for God’s sake, so they’ll turn into oak trees. You bastard!”
“Wasn’t me,” said Tonio. The words, repeated too many times, enraged her.
“You knew about the train. You cased her house, didn’t you, fucker?”
“Why you figure that?” The words were even, unemotional.
“Because,” Sorrel’s words skidded to a halt. She studied Jeanie’s face in her confusion. The freckles stood out like peppercorns on cottage cheese. She must be in shock, like Kherra talked about. Where was the damned ambulance? “Bastard,” she muttered.
“She knows ‘cause I told her,” said Brynna. Sorrel’s eyes flew up. “And I know, ‘cause you told me so. You’ve been everywhere, Tonio, haven’t you? Didn’t tell me that, but I can guess. Out at the courthouse, over at Quinto’s place.” Brynna’s eyes dropped to Jeanie’s head. Her face hardened. “At Futures, too. And everywhere the damned bombs were, that’s where you were. First.”
Tonio moved, shoulders tensing. Brynna stepped back. Tonio’s glance flickered from face to face: Randy, Dillon, Mackie, Quinto. He relaxed, and leaned back against the wall.
“Prove it.”
“I don’t have to prove it,” Sorrel said viciously. “I know. And they won’t be able to prove anything against me, dipshit, the day they find you in an alley, carved into little, tiny bits. They won’t even be able to identify you, because you won’t have a face left.”
Their eyes locked, power and threat shooting from one set of eyes to the other.
“It wasn’t Tonio,” Jeanie whispered. Every gaze pinned itself to the battered form on the floor.
“You hush, Jeanie girl,” said Sorrel, in an unconscious blend of Kherra and Jeanie herself. “You’re gonna be all right. He didn’t get you. The ambulance will be here real soon. You just don’t understand mother-fuckers like him, blow up anybody gets in the way of his precious drug sales.” Her gaze flicked to Brynna, and then away. “It’s okay, Jeanie. It’s good you’re talking, you’re going be all right, you hear? Mackie says so, she’s got her First Aid card.”
Jeanie stirred. Sorrel’s hand loosened, and smoothed the hair out of Jeanie’s eyes.
“It’s not Tonio,” Jeanie said. “It wasn’t, was it? It didn’t have anything to do with drugs, or the lawyer, or even that escaped convict. You know it, and I know it.” Her eyes were closed, but she seemed to be talking to someone. “Come on. You know it wasn’t Tonio. You can’t let him do this. He’s protecting his homey. Isn’t he?”
The hallway was still for a long moment.
“Yeah,” said Quinto.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Sometimes at night, along about August, Tonio watched the shooting stars, bright and fierce, disrupting the pattern of the night sky. He tried to follow them, tried to see the pattern, where each one came from, and where it went, knowing all the time that the next flash would appear out of nowhere.
He was a shooting star, Ricardo was. He’d always been, from the beginning. Tonio had followed, with the rest of the homeboys, hypnotized by the flashing brilliance of a man with fire in his veins.
Tonio had been a kid, only fourteen, when they’d locked up Ricardo. He’d felt blinded, imprisoned, like he’d been cut off from the sky, living without Ricardo. He’d grieved for that brilliant grin, the wild look Ricardo threw as he ran, daring the rest of them to follow. Quinto was only twelve then. To him, his brother was a god. Ricardo laughed as he punched the kid on the shoulder. Some day, he’d promised, some day, you’ll keep up with me. Go home now; take care of Mama.
A year or two passed without him. Tonio was the gang second, the organizer. Life was safer and tamer, but the thrill vanished with Ricardo. Quinto kept eager tabs on him, all agog over Ricky’s exploits in D-Home, MacLaren, and the treatment centers. At first the fights, the stories, were legendary, a tiger ripping his way through the rabbits, the deer, and the small scavengers. Then, all of a sudden, everything changed. Ricardo turned a new leaf, they said, was cooperative and eager to learn. The early suspicion of the wardens, the counselors, faded as the change seemed permanent, covered with that magnetic smile of which Ricardo was master.
One time, some teacher hauled Tonio and a bunch of kids to the Portland zoo. Tonio, the quiet kid, memorized the animals, and matched them up with lessons he’d learned. The tiger had camouflage, black lines to dull the outline of the orange muscle-bound predator. And if someone cages a tiger in a small box, with no room to run, he’ll pace, and pace, and pace, and make a beautiful picture for others to see. Inside, he’s crazy-mad, biding his time, waiting until the cage opens and he can kill his captors.
Quinto’s gang membership was only a matter of time. The homeys loved his artistry, despised his witlessness, but ultimately protected him, as their last connection to Ricardo. Quinto whispered the messages, of the ways Ricardo had found to sneak out, earn some money, get some drugs here, sell them there, acting as a middleman. The money wasn’t the big thing. It was the thrill of escape, the secret laughter as he snuck back in, to play innocent for another day.
There were close calls, even for Ricardo. He’d snowed Bryce Wogan and Danny Rivera, but not that old buddy of his, Vic Dunlap. Dunlap stirred up trouble. Rivera was only half-convinced, but Ricardo saw the writing on the wall. He quit using Rivera’s job sites as drug drops. Ricardo told Mackie he wasn’t happy in construction, and she’d found him a different job. No reflection on Danny Rivera, of course. There were back slaps on all sides, and Ricardo’s charming, self-deprecating grin allaying Danny’s fears, even as he said good-bye. In the back of his mind, Ricardo had marked the name, Vic Dunlap, as a score to settle. Ricardo sailed through his sentence and probation, and returned to Portland like a boomerang, to his white-collar job and connections on the legit side.
Around the same time, cops picked up Tonio for minor larceny. He felt guilty at his relief over being free of the gang, with their rough affection and smothering needs. Tonio put his time in D-Home to good use, observing successes and failures alike, judging his chances for a life worth living. He’d dropped a few words to a counselor, another few to a warden, and in no time at all they’d arranged his future, never suspecting that he’d arranged it for himself.
Uncle Carlos didn’t give a damn. A little money came through Tonio’s hands, as long as he was in school. Some of it paid for his uncle’s beer and an address, a place to get mail and phone messages while he lived in his car, taking care of himself. Raising himself.
It shocked him, finding Quinto in the same class. The old relationship snapped into place. He had to take care of the kid. Ricardo was living good. He had a nice house, nice apa
rtment, said Quinto, with mingled pride and disquiet. Monday night was visitation night at Quinto’s House. Quinto set up a meet for Tonio afterwards at the park nearby.
At first, Ricardo’s magic sucked in Tonio all over again. He admired the confident young guy on management track, with the nice motorcycle. Almost, he believed in the change. But once or twice, the façade slipped, and Tonio faced the caged tiger with the crazy-mad look. Love and fear wrenched at him, his loyalties split between his old life and the new. Portland, after all, was only forty miles away. Ricardo was free to roam any hours besides the forty he worked at the store. Flying the Five. Look at all the times Ricardo had led them down, right down I-5 to good old Salem. Oregon’s capital, he’d say, clearly relishing the thought of mayhem in the land where blind politicos made their laws.
When the pipe bomb took out Bryce Wogan, he’d thought of Ricardo. It made no sense. Ricardo never sparked against Wogan, and that was years before Wogan’s daughter got rooked into selling drugs. Ricky liked Rivera just fine, even if he had set him down as an easy mark. Besides, no matter how he figured it, he couldn’t see Ricky setting up a pipe bomb on a day Quinto was working the site.
Unsettled, Tonio asked Quinto a few things. Quinto was clueless, like always. Quinto didn’t work afternoons or weekends either. He’d only worked on the Saturday of the bomb because the job was a bit behind. Ricardo could have set the bomb, certain his brother would be out of the way. The timing was bad, but Ricardo relished risk. He’d have loved slipping into a working site, probably in a hotwired supplier’s truck, dropping off a box, and slipping out again, to hide in Portland less than an hour later.
The nights shrank, as Tonio made the rounds of anybody he could figure, anyone that Ricardo might have earmarked. Vic Dunlap worked days at the courthouse. Quinto knew it, because Vic and Danny were tight. Tonio took a chance. Ricky came to see Quinto on Monday evenings. Tuesday morning Tonio called in a bomb threat to the courthouse, and damned if he wasn’t right. There really was a pipe bomb. Still he wondered, was Ricardo scaring people, or was he out to kill?
When Ricardo came to the school, he saw it for sure. Her ex-student’s shining success even blinded Mackie. She couldn’t see that Ricardo was a bomb ready to explode. Tonio set himself full time to figuring out his old buddy’s tricks, and planning how to stop them, being proactive. Narking on his old leader wasn’t an option.
Logic said Ricardo would hook back up with Brynna. They’d worked together in Portland, their gang and the girl gang, hand-in-hand in a bunch of things, and drugs was one. The girl gang had drug connections all over the damned West Coast. Brynna swore to him, up and down, that that was all in the past. Yeah, right. The damned girl never could see past today.
So, Tonio put Bright Futures in his rounds, checking the perimeter, looking over the cars for signs of tampering. Ricardo would have to work at night, so as not to be “missing” from his regular apartment, his wonderful job, his new, brightly-patterned friends. Friends, with little habits that the “jobs” didn’t know about.
He met up with Ricardo at Bright Futures. Ricardo was in a rage. Torrez was a major obstacle, getting in the way of business. Tonio knew that himself. He’d seen Torrez roaming outside Futures at night, even on days she was off work. Now, Brynna was scared to sneak out, and Ricardo had to get his messages through. The nursery was too good a spot to give up, way out of the normal traffic plans, partway to Portland. One person tossed a package out his window as he drove by, and Brynna snatched it later out of the ditch. On set days, she’d hide it at the edge of the grounds, and Ricardo would come pick it up again. From the fevered glint in his eyes, he was using it as well as selling it.
Tonio tried to calm things down. Torrez was a bitch, right enough, but if she got hurt at Bright Futures, all the girls would be grilled by the cops, and there was no knowing what plans would get messed up. The cops might turn up Brynna, and besides, Tonio had a girlfriend at Futures. Could Ricardo lay off Torrez a while, until Tonio’s girl got out?
Ricardo nodded. It was something he understood. A guy had to protect his friends. Tonio hoped he’d solved the problem, but Ricardo just got Torrez at her apartment instead. God, that shook him. Even though he’d known she was a target, he hadn’t been checking her apartment, and that poor bitch lost a leg out of it. He should’ve seen it coming. Ricky’d always had a short fuse. When he was high, he never thought twice before doing whatever the hell he wanted.
He’d been running scared since then, worrying about who Ricardo would go after next. And the moment he’d thought it through, he knew. Quinto was the key. It must have scraped Ricardo raw, seeing Quinto’s hero worship for Danny Rivera, seeing him get so wild about building houses instead of trailing after Ricardo like he’d done all his life. Ricardo would get rid of Rivera. It was revenge on Rivera and on the company, for stealing his brother from him.
Tonio’s fear escalated. Who else, he wondered. Who else did Quinto look up to? Was Mackie in danger, or Jeanie?
Sleep was only a memory for Tonio, as he tried to protect the world. He’d checked the damned construction site just before the guard got there. Stupid, he thought, idiot. But he’d just scaled in the back way, checked the trusses, and totally forgotten the gate. If Vic hadn’t triggered the bomb, Danny would have. It was the sort of gambling Ricardo loved, not knowing which victim would fall first. Flip a coin, and death swoops in, heads or tails.
And here he was again, trailing around at night after Ricardo, hoping like hell he could catch him before the cops did. Ricardo was still a few steps up on him, like always, flashing on ahead, shouting, “Follow me.”
Tonio checked the chain link fence. Still locked. If he was here, he hadn’t taken his ride inside. He hadn’t seen the motorcycle anywhere around here, but that didn’t mean anything. Ricardo wouldn’t have seen Tonio’s car, either. He’d parked several blocks over and walked.
He should have realized Ricardo was watching the school. He’d blinded himself into thinking that Ricardo kept his tricks for nights or weekends. It hadn’t even occurred to him that Ricardo had started playing around with remote controls. Ricardo had just watched Jeanie near the car this afternoon after planting his package. Then he punched his little button, and off he’d gone on his motorcycle, to the glorious sounds of lives wrecked behind him. And what had she done to him? Only encouraged Quinto to turn towards construction, and away from Ricky. Only been a part of the program that Ricardo had decided to close down, forever. Jeanie, Rivera, and Mackie.
Tonio studied the fence, both ways, looking for pipes, bags, and any little thing that might conceal a bomb. He grabbed the fence and ran up the side, dropping down the other. His steps slowed at the scuffling sound inside the nearly completed building. Ricardo was up in the rafters, just where Tonio had figured. A tearing sound made him jump. Ricardo, tearing off a hunk of duct tape.
“Ricardo,” he called, in the thread of a voice that carried only to its intended destination. “Hey, homey, what’s up?” Stupid, he told himself.
Ricardo flinched, turned, and poised to leap down. “Tonio? Hey, Flaco, how you doing? Come to join me on a job?”
“Came to tell you, I don’t think that’s just the best place. What if Quinto spots it? You know how he is. He’ll blow himself to hell and back. Or does he already know about this?” The thought sickened him. Not Quinto, not everybody’s little brother, excited about his blueprints and whatever Rivera’d taught him today.
“Naw. Trust Quinto with a secret?” Even now, with his hands on a pipe bomb, Ricardo’s irrepressible humor reared its head. Tonio smiled weakly. “Naw, my bro won’t touch this, not him. I worked with Rivera, remember. He always checks the beams and rafters himself. In case,” he said caressingly, “of an accident. How ‘bout that, huh? Little accident.” He laid the pipe bomb along the wooden frame, and ripped free another length of duct tape.
“Ricardo.”
“Hmm?” The eyes measured the bomb, tore the tape, attached it to a si
de beam, and let it dangle while he peeled off a third.
“Ricardo, they know.”
The hands froze. “How’s that again?” The words were soft, deadly.
“After you blew up the car, they figured it out, about the remote in the bomb.”
“The car? Hmm, yeah. How’s that fuckin’ teacher of yours?”
“Dead,” lied Tonio. He wet his dry lips.
“Good. She had too much, you know, influence on my little brother. Can’t have that, now can we?” His words were a cruel mimicry of every counselor, every do-gooder who’d dared try to mold him into something he wasn’t.
“So Ricky, it’s too dangerous to try another one so soon. Right, bro? So leave it alone, for now. Come on, bring it on down with you. We’ll put it in my car.”
“Your car.” Ricardo rose, crouching among the rafters like a giant spider. “You sure that’s just how it happened, are you?” One of the spider legs moved and tested a strand. “You didn’t go and nark, did you, buddy? Homey? No, Flaco wouldn’t do that, not to the big man, not to me.”
“‘Course not, Ricky, I wouldn’t nark on you.”
“If you didn’t nark, how come you’re wandering around free? Seems like the cops’d hang onto you guys real tight, your teacher getting hurt and all.” His voice deepened with menace. “Unless you narked, offered to set me up, right now!”
“No!” God, what would he believe? That some black lady he’d never seen before had come to the station? Fussed at the cops on his teacher’s say-so? And then, after she got Tonio to her house, she’d fed him, gave him a bed, and never checked once to see if he was still in it. Weird woman, that Kherra. He couldn’t say any of that, even if he hadn’t said Jeanie was dead. “Hey, I can still pick a lock on handcuffs. You think I lost my touch? There was a street fight went down, real riot over on the east side. Station was so busy, they stuck me in a corner and forgot me. Gave me plenty of time to slip the cuffs, and slide on out. Get real, Ricky. Did I nark on you after you blew up Torrez? Dunlap?”
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