I nod. “What’s up?”
He shrugs and smiles, showing two, maybe three teeth. “Nothing better to do.”
“Retired, huh?”
“You could say that.”
I get to work directing the guys on the roof with the winch and the guys inside with the safe. Pretty soon we’ve got the safe out and dangling in space. I signal the winch guys to start easing her down. As the winch starts cranking I look across the touchdown area and see some kid, a little Korean girl, no more than three, standing a couple of feet inside the tape. It’s not like she’s in danger or nothing, but I want her back where she belongs. I start toward her but I don’t go two steps before something squishes under my right boot.
I look down. “Shit!”
Which is exactly what it is. A nice fat pile of dog shit.
Behind me I hear the old man laugh and say, “Maybe you ain’t so lucky after all!”
As I stop to kick my boot against the concrete I hear a screech of stressed-out metal and hoarse shouts from above. Before I can look up, the safe slams onto and into the sidewalk directly in front of me.
For the next few seconds, all around me, there’s no sound. Then someone says “Madre!” and another voice laughs and soon it’s a babble that I barely hear. Because I’m looking at the safe and knowing that’s exactly where I would’ve been when it hit . . . if I hadn’t stepped in that dog shit.
I sense someone beside me. I turn and it’s that old black guy. He’s come through the tape and his wide brown eyes with yellowish whites are staring at me from inches away. He grabs my forearm and squeezes.
“Wh-what are you doing?” I feel like I’ve got a mouth full of epoxy.
“Jus wanna touch you, man. Thas all. I ain’t never had one lick of good luck in my whole damn life, and you . . . you gots enough for two, three even. Maybe some of it will rub off.”
I yank my arm free and pull away. Not toward the building and my guys. Away. Just away.
Half an hour later I’m in a bar, having lunch—a golden liquid with a foamy cap. Every since I pulled myself out of my post-Maria binge, I haven’t had a drink before five or six at night. Not one. But today is different. I’m quivering down to my intestinal lining.
Because now I know what’s happening. I had it all wrong. I thought Jason had been coached to tell me I was going to die today, but it wasn’t that at all. It’s Ralda. She’s put some kind of Gypsy curse on me. The joint custody agreement ain’t enough for her. She wants J all to herself.
And J . . . the old lady’s always said he has a “gift” . . . maybe some part of his subconscious sensed what his grandmother was up to and tried to warn me.
Or maybe . . .
Christ, what am I thinking? I don’t believe in any of this shit. Never have.
And yet . . .
Something’s wrong today. I can feel it. Not just that I was almost killed twice. Something more.
Maybe almost is the key word. I should’ve been flattened by that pickup, but the eighteen-wheeler saved me. I should’ve been crushed by that safe, but I stepped on a juicy dog turd at just the right moment to delay me just enough to stay alive.
Almost as if I’m caught in the middle of a tug of war. Ralda is out to get me, no question, but something—someone—else has been pulling me back from each brink she pushes me to.
Who? Only two possibilities that I can see. One is Jason—not consciously, because he would have told me about it last night or this morning. But maybe unconsciously he’s using his “gift” to fight for his dear old dad.
The thought brings tears to my eyes. My little boy, taking my side against his grandmother’s black magic.
The other possibility is Maria. I’ve never believed in an Other Side. I’ve always figured when you’re dead, you’re dead. But what if I’m wrong? I mean, I’ve been wrong about lots of things in my life, so why not add the afterlife to the list.
What if Maria’s here, invisible but hanging close to me, shielding me from her mother’s curse?
But what if it’s simply luck that’s keeping me alive? What if that old street dude is right? That I’m the luckiest man alive.
Fine. Great. But nobody’s luck lasts forever. When does mine run out? Maybe I’ve used up my share for the day or the week or the month and from now on I’m on my own.
Which means I have to make my luck.
I raise my beer glass but stop it halfway to my mouth. It’s only my second, but maybe that’s part of Ralda’s curse: drown my fears, get sloshed, and splatter my truck and myself against a bridge abutment.
No way. She doesn’t get me that easy.
I leave a sawbuck and the rest of my beer on the bar and get the hell out. I stand blinking in the sunlight, wondering where I can go to be safe. Not downtown L.A. Any second now someone could lose control of their car, jump the sidewalk, and flatten me against a wall like a swatted fly. I wish I was home but I’m sure as hell not risking the freeway to get there. Like jumping into a lion’s den.
I need a place that’s wide open. And public. Away from trucks and safes. Someplace I can get to without crossing too many streets. Only one place comes to mind.
I start walking, eyes on the move to check for threats above, below, and around. I hang back from the curbs at crosswalks, I don’t step onto the street until everything’s come to a dead stop, and then I stick close to my fellow pedestrians, figuring their presence will dilute the curse or whatever it is that’s dogging me.
It takes me longer than I ever could have imagined to reach Pershing Square, but I make it in one piece. I’ve been here before, just out of curiosity. It’s a pretty cool place with all this modern architecture-sculpture and landscaping and fountains, but I can’t appreciate any of that now. All I want is a safe spot, and I think this is it. If I hang out at the center here, no car can get to me, even if the driver’s been paid to run me down. It’s open enough so that nobody can sneak up on me. And it’s far enough from any buildings so that even if there’s an earthquake nothing can fall on me.
I buy a paper, find a good spot near Pershing’s statue, and hang here, reading, watching. Every so often someone from my crew calls my cell and I tell them what to do, but I never say where I am. Don’t want nobody knowing that.
My stomach starts to growl as the sun settles behind one of the taller buildings but I’m afraid to eat. What if it’s poisoned? Not like the hot dog guy is out to get me, but if I’ve got a curse on me and if there’s one poisoned frank in the city, it’ll find its way to me. Same goes for a drink. Never know when you might pick up a tampered cola.
I’m cursing myself for being so crazy paranoid, but all I need to do is survive the day, make it till midnight, and I’ll have beaten her.
So I keep waiting and watching. I should call to let Jason know I’ll be late, but I’d have to talk to her, and the last person on earth I want to talk to is her.
I hold my safe perch well into the dark. Finally I look at my watch: 10:58. Just a tad more than an hour to go.
And suddenly I want to be there in Ralda’s bungalow, eye to eye as the clock strikes twelve. I know it’s crazy but I can’t resist the urge. I want to laugh in her face when that moment arrives.
Real careful-like, I make my way back to the garage, get in my pickup, and start the trip to Lomita. My guts are tied in knots as I get on the 110 and head south. I keep my sweaty hands tight on the wheel and stick to a middle lane where I won’t be in the way of the speeders and won’t have to deal with on-ramps and off-ramps.
The Lomita exit is coming up and I’m checking my rearview to see if it’s safe to ease right when I spot two low-slung cars, one bright orange, the other canary yellow, racing my way through the traffic like candy-colored bullets, weaving in and out at suicidal speed.
Every muscle in my body clenches as I somehow know without a doubt that one of them is going to kill me. Not on purpose, but it’s going to happen. He’s being controlled by an unseen hand, just like me.
I
realize now that the whole stupid idea of seeing Ralda at the last minute didn’t come from me, but from her, pushing me out of my safe spot and onto the road where she can finish me off.
Panicked, I freeze. Go left? Go right? Stay where I am? All I can be sure of is that whatever move I make will be wrong. But I’ve got—
What’s that popping noise? Oh, no, oh God, they’re shooting at each other. It’s some sort of gang thing and I’m going to be caught in the middle of it.
A sudden calm slips over me. The panic, the fear, the indecision melt away. I give myself over to the inevitability of what’s about to happen. It’s over . . . all over. This is where it ends for me and there’s not a damn thing I can do about it.
In this strange, peaceful mood, I hang in the center lane. The traffic seems to slow. The air thickens as the world around me grinds down into second gear, then into first. I hear rapid-fire pops, see flashes blooming from the windows of the onrushing cars as the orange one veers to my right, the yellow to my left. They continue their barrage as they flank me. The sound is deafening. My windows shatter on both sides, peppering me with an ice storm of semi-sharp safety glass. I can feel the whoosh of the slugs as they hurtle through the car, even feel one tug at the hair at the back of my head. I see—or at least think I do—the bullets whizzing past my face from opposite directions. And I brace for the one that will end me.
And then the two cars are past. They’re still shooting at each other but they’re moving on. And I’m still alive. The guy ahead of me ain’t so lucky. He winds up in the gunfire sandwich, just like me, only I see the silhouette of his head jerk left as it catches one and suddenly his car veers onto the shoulder and jumps the railing.
I roll my own car onto the shoulder a little past where he went over. I stop, open the door, and vomit. Or at least try to. I ain’t had a thing to eat since breakfast and so only a little bile comes up.
I look around and see other cars pulled over, people out and jumping the railing to go check on the guy who went over, others talking on their cell phones—to the cops, I hope.
I close the door and slump against the steering wheel, gasping for air. I should be dead. No way I should have survived that barrage. I should be down in that ravine with the other poor bastard.
But I’m not. And the only reason I can come up with is protection: Here’s further proof, damn near undeniable proof, that someone’s protecting me.
With that thought fixed firmly in my head and heart, I slip the car back into gear and head for Ralda’s house.
I have her beat. I want to see her face when she realizes it.
“Vincent!” Ralda says as she opens her front door. She’s traded this morning’s housedress for a ratty purple robe, but she’s still wearing those fuzzy white slippers. “Where have you been?”
I brush past her and turn to face her.
“Worried about me?” I say with a wolfish grin—at least it feels wolfish.
In fact I’m feeling pretty wolfish all over—tough and mean and pretty goddamn near invincible.
“Yes. And so was Jason. He kept listening to the news for word that you’d been killed like his mother. He was terrified.”
Some of the wolf dies. I hadn’t thought of that. One parent gets killed on the road and J can’t help worrying about the same thing happening to the other half of the team.
I look around but don’t see him.
“Where is he?”
“In my bed.” Ralda fixes me with this you-should-be-ashamed stare. “He fell asleep watching the late news, hoping he wouldn’t hear about you, praying you’d call soon.”
I feel like a shit, but only for an instant.
“I’d’ve been home on time if it wasn’t for you.”
Her eyes widen. “Me?”
“Yeah. You. You!” I hear my voice rising and I let it go. “Don’t think I don’t know about the curse you put on me. You were out to kill me today, but it didn’t work. First off, Jason warned me. And second, someone’s been protecting me. Someone more powerful that you, Ralda.” I laugh and I don’t particularly like the sound. “Christ, I couldn’t have died today if I tried!”
She’s looking at me like I’m a crackhead or something.
“Vincent, are you mad? Where did you ever get the idea that I could lay a curse on anyone? Others have that power, but I do not. And even if I could, do you think I would deprive Jason of his father, his only surviving parent? I may not like you, and I may think you’re hurting Jason by ignoring his gift, but I would never wish another tragedy on that poor boy.”
Something in what she’s saying and how she says it strikes home, hits true: Ralda don’t give a damn about me beyond what I mean to J. And she’d never do anything that might hurt him.
My head’s spinning. What’s been happening to me all day? I could have been killed three times but I walked away. What—?
“You’re going to die tomorrow.”
I jump at the sound of Jason’s voice. I turn and see him standing in Ralda’s bedroom doorway, looking through me with that same thousand-mile stare as last night.
And suddenly I’m furious again.
“Jesus Christ, Ralda, will you give it up!”
Her eyes are fixed on J as she waves me to silence.
“He has the gift,” she whispers. “I’ve been telling you that but you won’t listen.”
“Aw, don’t start in about gifts again. I told you—”
“He has the Sight.”
I’m getting more and more steamed.
“Ralda—”
“Listen to me. When he gets like this he can see the future. Only a day or two ahead now, and only as it applies to him—but with nurturing, that will improve.”
“Bullshit. Last night you had him say I was going to die today, and I didn’t, so now you’ve got him saying I’m going to die tomorrow. And what’ll happen tomorrow night at”—I check my watch—“eleven fifty-eight? Same thing?”
She whirls toward me. “What time was it when he first told you?”
“Who cares?”
“You do! It’s important!”
I think back to last night when he woke me up. I know I looked at the clock, but what did it say? And then I remember . . .
“One ten . . . ten after one.”
And then she’s staring at me with wonder and terror in her eyes and I know I’ve got to be looking back at her with the same.
I can barely hear her voice.
“It was after midnight when he told you. He wasn’t talking about today, he was talking about tomorrow.” She turns toward my lost-looking son. “He’s still talking about tomorrow.”
HUNTERS
I asked the hunter what degree of soullessness was required to take aim with a high-powered rifle at a graceful herbivore and snuff it out with a finger-twitch.
“I hunt just for sport,” he replied.
“That’s sport?”
“Understand that it’s so much more than mere shooting: fresh air, the outdoors, the oneness with nature, the camaraderie with your fellow hunters as you ring the campfire and swap tales.”
“You could use blanks and still do all that.”
He laughed. “That would take the fun out of it!”
So I shot him. Just for sport.
He was right.
It was fun.
PART OF THE GAME
“You have been brought to attention of a most illustrious one,” Jiang Zhifu said.
The Chinaman wore long black cotton pajamas with a high collar and onyx-buttoned front. He’d woven his hair into a braid that snaked out from beneath a traditional black skullcap. His eyes were as shiny and black as his onyx buttons and, typical of his kind, gave nothing away.
Detective Sergeant Hank Sorenson smiled. “I guess the Mandarin heard about my little show at Wang’s pai-gow parlor last night.”
Jiang’s mug remained typically inscrutable. “I not mention such a one.”
“Didn’t have to. Tell him I want to me
et him.”
Jiang blinked. Got him! Direct speech always set these chinks back on their heels.
Hank let his cup of tea cool on the small table between them. He’d pretend to take a sip or two but not a drop would pass his lips. He doubted anyone down here would make a move against a bull, but you could never be sure where the Mandarin was concerned.
He tried to get a bead on this coolie. A call in the night from someone saying he was Jiang Zhifu, a “representative”—these chinks made him laugh—of an important man in Chinatown. He didn’t have to say who. Hank knew. The chink said they must meet to discuss important matters of mutual interest. At the Jade Moon. Ten a.m.
Hank knew the place—next to a Plum Street joss house—and he’d arrived early. First thing he’d done was check out the rear alley. All clear. Inside he’d chosen a corner table near the rear door and seated himself with his back to the wall.
The Jade Moon wasn’t exactly high end as Chinkytown restaurants went: dirty floors, smudged tumblers, chipped lacquer on the doors and trim, ratty-looking paper lanterns dangling from the exposed beams.
Not the kind of place he’d expect to meet a minion of the mysterious and powerful and ever-elusive Mandarin.
The Mandarin didn’t run Chinatown’s rackets. He had a better deal: He skimmed them. Never got his hands dirty except with the money that crossed them. Dope, prostitution, gambling . . . the Mandarin took a cut of everything.
How he’d pulled that off was a bigger mystery than his identity. Hank had dealt with the tongs down here—tough mugs one and all. Not the sort you’d figure to hand over part of their earnings without a fight. But they did.
Well, maybe there’d been a dustup and they lost. But if that was what had happened, it must have been fought out of sight, because he hadn’t heard a word about it.
Hank had been running the no-tickee-no-shirtee beat for SFPD since 1935 and had yet to find anyone who’d ever seen the Mandarin. And they weren’t just saying they’d never seen them—they meant it. If three years down here had taught him anything, it was that you never ask a chink a direct question. You couldn’t treat them like regular people. You had to approach everything on an angle. They were devious, crafty, always dodging and weaving, always ducking the question and avoiding an answer.
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