It wouldn’t be the first time.
From the desks along the wall, two young ladies both turn and nod hello. Each in their early twenties, one is dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, the other a pair of bibs. Both of Hispanic descent, their hair is pulled back.
A stack of books sits on the desk before them. Each recipients of what Lima plans to make an annual scholarship program, part of the terms of their tuition being covered is that they show up at least a couple times a week for study hall.
As far as Lima can tell, neither have missed more than a few days since classes first started a month before.
“Bocco,” Lima says, extending a fist toward his colleague. “Ladies,” he adds, raising two fingers to his brow in salute before falling into a sofa.
The springs of it sag beneath his weight as he extends diagonally across it, resting his upper body on an elbow.
“When did the boys get here?” Lima asks.
“’Bout an hour ago,” Bocco says.
“Any problems?”
“None,” Bocco replies. “They knocked and asked if it was okay they got started, it being Sunday morning and all.”
Grunting, Lima nods in approval.
East LA is a long way from being Beverly Hills or Glendale. The average income in the area is less than thirty thousand dollars a year, the majority demographic Hispanic.
Like himself, most of those barely graduated high school.
But it is also a hell of a long way from Compton or Inglewood. And if their project can help to keep widening the gap between the two, all the better.
Even if that means they need to dabble in some bad things to achieve a whole lot of good ones.
“You tell them they played a good game on Friday?” Lima asks.
“I did,” Bocco says. “Also told them to stop in for their payment when they were done.”
Nodding once more, Lima motions with his chin toward the girls sitting nearby. “How long?” he mouths.
“Same,” Bocco replies, his voice inaudible.
Giving a soft grunt in reply, Lima falls silent. His eyes glaze as he stares out, thinking of what he is seeing, of how far the project has come in such a short time.
Less than two years before, it was nothing more than a pipe dream. Wishful thinking in response to seeing yet another loved one get shot down in the street. Knowing that if he was to give into the call for vengeance, it would only escalate a pattern that had no hope of ending.
Not until it got him. And Bocco. And probably the two boys outside as well.
Now, they were still a long way from where they wanted to be, but progress was evident. Getting the building at a police auction was a coup. Earning the trust of the community enough to hire local kids to cut the grass or wash their cars had taken even longer.
They were slowly getting where they wanted to be, but the work was slow and painstaking.
Not to mention expensive.
“Where you go last night?” Lima asks, seeing the look of exhaustion obvious on his friend’s face.
“Huntington Park,” Bocco replies. “Couple solid leads. Should be easy pickin’s.”
“Yeah?” Lima asks. “What are they moving?”
“Rock,” Bocco answers. “And lots of it.”
Falling silent, Lima considers what this means. Given the litany of new designer drugs flooding the market, crack was well on down the list. The type of thing police officers in suits and ties liked to stand in front of the cameras and claim they’d eradicated.
They’d really get off on hearing about this.
“Anybody else stop by today?” Lima asks, flicking his gaze over to Bocco, his intention clear.
“Not yet,” Bocco replies, “but based on the look on his face as you walked away from his car last night, I’d be surprised if we didn’t hear from him before long.”
Chapter Thirteen
The young girl working behind the front desk at The Sundowner has what appears to be a tarantula growing from her head. A dozen or more thick dreadlocks ranging from dark brown to midnight black, hanging in random lengths, drop down from every possible point atop her head.
One hangs down over the bridge of her nose, making it almost to the piercing of her top lip as she stares across the desk, the color a stark contrast to her milky-white skin.
Jensen Spiers is in no mood for trying to decipher the look she’s going for.
Even less, the blatant hostility roiling off her in undulating waves.
“Yeah?” she asks, her voice and her expression letting it be known he is interrupting her texting.
A dozen responses all come instantly to mind. One at a time, they present themselves, each more enticing than the one before, cast aside as soon as they arrive.
As tempting as hassling this girl would be, there are more important things to focus on at the moment.
Reaching into the interior pocket of his sport coat, Spiers fishes out his badge. Wagging it at her, he replaces it, grabbing up the only other item lodged deep inside.
The photograph of his wife and stepdaughter was taken just a short time before at the beach. Both are wearing cloth shorts and bathing suit tops, matching white-blond hair blowing in the breeze. Their heads are thrown back laughing, the two mirrored copies of one another, separated by a couple inches of height and twenty years of age.
Nothing more.
Where they were or even who took the picture, Spiers doesn’t have the slightest. Had he not gone searching for a recent photo a couple nights before and found it wedged into the frame of the mirror in his stepdaughter’s room, he’d have never known it existed.
Or that they’d been to the beach, just one more secret in the shitshow that had become their life.
“These two women were spotted here last night,” Spiers says. “Can you confirm whether they’re still here?”
Raising a hand with a tattoo of the sun covering the back of it and a ring on every finger, the girl pushes aside the dreadlock. Focusing on the picture, she considers it a moment, her pupils dilating slightly.
“What did they do?”
Glancing over his shoulder, Spiers can see his partner standing outside. Still dressed in the blue polo, he’s wearing jeans and running shoes, his thick arms hanging down. His head on a swivel, his gaze never lingers for more than a moment, catching everything.
Which doesn’t amount to much, the place no more than a couple dozen rooms, the parking lot holding enough cars to fill less than a third of them.
“Didn’t mind their own damn business,” Spiers replies, the answer at once an admonishment to the girl and much closer to the truth than he’d like. “Can you confirm?”
Pursing her lips slightly, Spiers recognizes the look before it is fully developed. It is one that his stepdaughter has already started making with infuriating regularity, especially for someone her age.
Feeling his ire spike, not wanting to continue the conversation a second longer than necessary, he shoots a hand across the desk. Grabbing one of the dreadlocks, he jerks hard, the fibrous hair like steel wool between his fingers.
Letting out a gasp, the girl’s hip slams into the desk. Her head rotates to the side, hands splaying out on the stained Formica counter between them.
“Hey. Hey!” she gasps. “Those things are attached.”
“You’re going to have things a hell of a lot more painful than some hair detached if you don’t answer my question,” Spiers spits through a clamped jaw. Making no attempt to stem the hostility he’s feeling, he slaps the picture down again, forcing her to look at it.
“The older one is blind. May or may not be using a cane. Have you seen them?”
With the last syllable uttered, he gives the braid an extra twist, hearing more air escape the girl’s lips.
“No,” she says. “But yes. There’s two women here, and one of them is blind, but they don’t look like that.”
“What do they look like?” Spiers snaps.
The girl leans her body out a couple of inches over th
e counter, doing anything to decrease the strain on her head. “Their hair is short and dark. Almost as dark as mine.”
Flicking his gaze down to the picture, the reasoning makes sense. Changing their hair would have been the quickest and easiest attempt to alter their identity.
Possibly even the only switch they could make while hiding in a seedy hotel.
“What room are they in?”
Chapter Fourteen
The SUV Mikey set up for me is a 2018 Ford Explorer Sport with four doors and three thousand miles on the odometer. The front dash is lined with enough gadgets and electronics to make an aspiring NASA engineer salivate. The lengths that people go to for technology these days never ceases to amaze me.
I can only imagine what most folks would do if they were forced to spend a week with me out in the desert.
Despite the GPS system mounted to the front dash, the first thing I did after leaving the garage was to disable the power cord snaking up the back of it. I don’t want him — or anybody else — to have remote access to where I am or where I am headed.
I left the phone I used to call Mikey earlier in the cab of my truck. It was just one more thing he could access to keep tabs on me if he wanted. I unwrapped a second burner from new plastic and inserted a SIM card into the back.
Once it was alive, I programmed the address from the original file into Google Maps, watching as it calculated the route. A moment later, it told me to head east toward the town of West Covina, the drive a straight shot along the I-10.
Much like my route north, most of it was clear, my mind moving every bit as fast as the Explorer, trying to answer the scads of questions I had.
The official inquiry Mikey gave me was to drive from the town of Los Angeles to Ketchum, Oklahoma, a tiny burg of a couple thousand people. I have actually been there, the place still serving as a standard snapshot of Midwestern life in the eighties.
There is a filling station, a Tastee Freez, a roller rink, and a high school that graduates less than a hundred kids most years.
Quaint, if you’re into the down-home, slower-pace-of-life vibe.
None of which matters a bit right now, because I’m not going to Oklahoma. Nor is the person that reached out to Mikey.
The entire thing was a message, a thinly veiled code meant to get my attention.
Alternating my glance between the road and the speedometer, I keep the engine pegged at eight miles above the speed limit. As bad as I want to get to that pulsating red dot on the phone screen beside me, I can’t afford to do something foolish like get pulled over. Or draw attention to myself.
Or anything that might delay my arrival in the slightest.
Gripping the steering wheel in both hands, I can see veins etched the length of my arms. In various places, the dark tan skin is mottled with bruises, the discolorations highlighted by the sheen of sweat on my skin.
It’s been three years since I heard from this person. Not since I decided to call it quits and headed south. For them to be reaching out now, and in this manner, means something has gone seriously awry.
What that could be, my mind formulates handfuls of answers, each worse than the one before it.
“In one mile, take exit 46B,” the automated voice informs me.
Without glancing down, I follow the instruction, my breath growing tighter as I exit the freeway. Hooking a right, I glance to the Ruger SR1911 on the passenger seat beside me.
Manufactured brand-new by the private machinist Mikey keeps on staff, the weapon is a complete ghost, incapable of being matched by any forensic measure in the world.
Just one tiny part of the full-service package.
“Your destination is ahead on the right.”
Casting my gaze from the gun to the screen to the road ahead, I see an oversized sign sitting along the side of the road. Cut from sheet metal painted blue, neon bulbs have been screwed into the front of it, red lights blazing despite the time of day.
Just seeing it, the knot in my stomach grows tighter.
“The Sundowner,” I whisper, seeing the low-rent structure and calculating what it must mean.
The last time we spoke, things had been good. Gainful employment. Government benefits. Everything needed to make a go of things, even in a place like Los Angeles.
For me to now be summoned to a place like this means either things have taken a negative turn, or there is serious trouble afoot.
Easing back on the gas, I refrain from turning in just yet. As badly as I am aching to get closer, to see exactly what is going on, to help in any way I can, I can’t be stupid about this. I have to presume I was called up out of the desert for more than just a get-together or to act as a chauffeur.
Pulse thumping, I cast sideways glances at the place as I roll by, inventorying everything I see.
Chapter Fifteen
The room is registered to an Amanda Weir, the sort of name that is different enough to not get flagged by any searches, but close enough to be easily remembered. The sort of small detail that Spiers’s wife had likely picked up over the last couple years. Typical end-of-the-day venting on his part that turned out to be more like future skills training for her.
The mere thought is enough to do the near impossible, making Jensen Spiers even more pissed than he was just five minutes before.
“They here?” Lucas asks the instant he pops out of the front lobby.
Glancing back over his shoulder, Spiers can see the girl behind the counter cocking her head to either side, rubbing her neck. Dreads still swing free around her head.
Any moment, she is likely to pick up the phone, either to call up to the room to issue a warning or to the local precinct to file a complaint.
“Sounds like it,” Spiers replies. “We should move quick too. I wouldn’t exactly say our friend in there has much interest in helping us.”
Flicking a glance back through the window, Lucas leaves it be without comment.
It is far from their first time working together. He knows the drill.
“Second floor,” Spiers says. “Far end, room 201.”
Higher floor to prevent someone from pulling right up in front of their door. On an end to ensure quick access to the stairs.
More tips Jensen never even realized he was doling out.
“Place has a stairwell on either end,” he says. “No elevator.”
Spiers nods, looking out over the parking lot. The thin smattering of cars present means absolutely nothing, neither of the people he is there in search of able to drive.
Not that it probably would have mattered anyway. His wife was thus far showing far more savvy than he would have imagined.
If he wasn’t so damn mad, he had to admit he might be impressed.
“Take the back side to catch any runners,” Spiers replies. “I’ll go up the front and knock on the door. You don’t see or hear anything in three, come on down.”
“Roger that,” Lucas replies, turning and heading off without a word.
Allowing him a moment to make his way down, Spiers stares out across the narrow concrete expanse to the traffic pushing past in either direction. The Sunday morning crowd is just starting to pick up, though it is still far lighter than he can imagine any other day of the week to be.
A tiny blessing, at least.
The fewer people that see or hear what is about to happen, the better.
As recently as a week before, Spiers would have never thought this possible. That he would be standing outside the sort of dive that didn’t have elevators and allowed people to pay cash by the night, about to roust his wife.
That she would be so stupid to not only be running from him, but to have pulled what she did, setting all this in motion.
His rear molars grind together as he rolls everything around, thinking on how far he and Lucas have come, on the unwanted visit from Lima the night before. His nostrils flare as he pushes an angry breath out, careful not to give the girl behind the counter any further reason to pick up the phone.
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Ten minutes. All he needs is ten minutes, and then he’s on his way, out of this shithole and back to where things make sense.
Rotating on the ball of his foot, Spiers heads for the stairwell. The stairs are concrete slabs resting on metal supports. His shoes scrape against each one as he climbs a dozen steps, crosses the mezzanine, and ascends a second flight.
Coming out on the second floor, he spots Lucas on the far end. Nothing more than his blond flattop is visible as he lingers in the stairwell, almost hidden, lying in wait.
Nine minutes.
The curtains for the corner unit are pulled closed as Spiers passes the window. The paint around it is yellowed with age and cracking badly, just one more thing about the place in dire need of updating.
If not total demolition.
It’s just one more thing to heighten the agitation Spiers is feeling. He steps up to the door and pauses. Hearing not the slightest sound from within, he knocks twice on the dark green wood. Careful not to pound near as hard as he would like, he taps just beneath the faux brass numerals screwed into the wood, a hollow sound echoing out.
There is no point in covering the peephole, though out of pure habit, he does so anyway. His body cocked to the side, his weight is balanced, his breath held.
For a moment, there is no response. Nothing but the faint din of traffic rolling past behind him.
Followed by the release of bed springs uncoiling. Steps growing closer to the door. The chain sliding across and the door swinging open to reveal his wife standing before him.
A smile on her face.
“Thank God. I knew you’d get the message.”
Chapter Sixteen
The cover sheet provided in Mikey’s file was specific. Too damn specific, all things considered, but when one is in a state of alarm, the first thing to go are basic cognitive functions.
And it wasn’t like they were ever that hyperaware of such things anyway.
That’s what I was for.
The first time I’d seen it, I’d added it to the list of admonishments I would have to make once extraction was complete and we were on the road.
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