by Don Winslow
“Can we do it?”
“Oh, yeah.”
I’m Bobby Z, right?
Tim finds a hardware store, where he buys some PVC pipe, a hacksaw and some steel wool. At the general store back on Mount Laguna he buys the usual crap, some chocolate-chip cookie dough, and the thinnest cookie sheet they have.
He’s struggling with all this shit when Kit runs ahead to the cabin so he can unlock it.
It’s funny, Tim thinks, what little stuff’ll make a kid happy.
They bake cookies that night. Kit does, anyway—Tim doesn’t have a fucking clue how to bake cookies. He tried to get a job in the kitchen at Quentin but they put him in the license-plate factory instead.
43.
The Monk hangs up the phone and looks out over the ocean. The living room has floor-to-ceiling windows, so this isn’t too tough to do. House sits on the edge of a point with rock cliffs on three sides, so if you want to see ocean you can see ocean without straining your neck. You can see El Morro beach to your right and Laguna Beach to your left. House has a million-dollar view, which it should, because it cost three times that.
Dope money. Bobby Z money.
Problem is, now he’s back.
What’s shaking Monk up is not so much that Bobby is back—that’s a problem in the physical world—it’s that One Way’s prophecy is being fulfilled.
You take a hike on God, fulfilled prophecies are bound to make you a little hinky.
The zoo? The Monk thinks. Since when does Bobby go to the zoo? Why not meet in the cave at Salt Creek Beach like they used to? Or the steps at Three Arch Bay? Why the zoo?
Because he doesn’t trust you, Monk thinks. He wants a public place.
Paranoia, Monk sighs as he slides the glass door open and steps onto the deck. The bane of the drug market.
Twenty K and a passport. Twenty K? Lunch money to Bobby, but he sure seems sweaty to get it. And a passport. Bobby’s splitting the country again, so that must mean he’s feeling heat from the Heat and not just Don Huertero. You just can’t get out of Don Huertero’s jurisdiction. Not breathing, anyway.
And who’s Bobby kidding with this what’d I ever do to Don Huertero bit. The Monk wonders if Bobby didn’t have someone listening to the conversation. Like maybe Huertero already has Bobby and he’s setting me up.
There’s no loyalty, Monk sighs, in a godless world.
Because the fact is that Monk ripped Huertero off big-time. And Bobby, for that matter. Bobby took the old Mexican’s money—three million yanqui dollars—for some Thai opium and delivered it to Huertero’s boys in Bangkok. But Monk ratted them out to the Thai police, then split the opium and the profits with the Thais.
Sorry, Don Huertero, but the Thai police busted your boys. Say adiós to your investment. Bad luck.
Well, Monk thinks as he watches some surfers catch the reef break down on El Morro, Huertero must have figured it out.
And he’s mad.
And now Bobby’s in trouble and he wants to know why. Will want to have a look at the books. Will probably want to give the money back.
I don’t think so, Monk thinks.
He drives into town and cogitates on the universe over an Italian cappuccino. He still can’t figure out how that acid casualty One Way knew that Z was back.
It spooks him.
Spooks him so much that he drives down to Dana Point to check on the boat.
Looks over his shoulder as he strides down the slip. Doesn’t see One Way or anyone else so he starts to figure that even a lunatic gets lucky every once in a while in the old prophecy business.
True? If a hardcore schiz like John the Baptist can hit it, maybe One Way can, too. So relax.
Monk goes below and starts in to work with a screwdriver and woodworking knife. Two hours later he removes a section of plank and reaches into the hull.
Feels the nicely wrapped packages of cash.
Works diligently to replace the plank and while he’s working he’s thinking.
Maybe it’s time to sail away.
But first he has to give Bobby his chump change and his passport.
Then kill him.
44.
Gruzsa’s pissed because he’s getting ashes all over his new shoes.
He’s standing in the ruins of Casa Brian Cervier and the wind’s blowing ashes all over his brand-new pair of cordovan Bostonians that he got on sale at Nordstrom.
Gruzsa’s also unhappy because Brian got whacked almost two weeks ago and no one thought to tell him about it until now. So now he’s standing out in the middle of fucking nowhere ruining the shine on his shoes and looking down at the crispy remains of major-league pervert and skell Brian Cervier, who looks like he’s been napalmed, and Gruzsa figures that with a disaster this big that stupid moke Tim Kearney just has to be involved.
“Carbon in his lungs?” Gruzsa asks the young DEA agent whose name he’s already forgotten and who looks like he’s been on the job for maybe a month.
“The ME says no.”
“So Brian got lucky,” Gruzsa says. “Died before the fire. What, did his clothes all burn up?”
“No, he was naked.”
So there’s luck and there’s luck, Gruzsa thinks.
“And they say Bobby Z was here?” Gruzsa asks for about the fifteenth time.
“We rounded up some of the household staff in Borrego Springs and they all say that a Señor Z was a guest at the house.”
“But we haven’t found Señor Z’s body,” Gruzsa repeats.
“No.”
Because Señor Z is a trickier motherfucker than I thought, Gruzsa admits to himself.
“What about this dead Kraut?” Gruzsa asks.
“Engine failure,” the kid says. “It looks unrelated.”
“What are you—stupid?” Gruzsa asks. “You got a crispy-critter drug dealer and slave merchant, his Heinrich business associate dropped out of the sky like a meteor, you got some big rock in the middle of the desert with dead Indians all over it like it’s a John Wayne movie, and you think anything’s unrelated? You think, what, the house gets hit by lightning and goes up like Nagasaki? Where are you from, Iowa?”
The kid stands there turning red and it isn’t from the sun.
“Kansas,” he says.
“This is fucking great,” Gruzsa says. “I’m going up against fucking Don Huertero and fucking Bobby Z and fucking who knows who else and I’ve got some goober from Kansas on my side. Say the truth, they have drugs in Kansas?”
“Sure.”
“Sure. What do they have?”
Kid starts listing drugs but Gruzsa’s not listening. He’s thinking that now this all-American loser Kearney starts believing that he is the great Bobby Z and starts leaving bodies in his trail like bread crumbs. Fucking asshole thinks he’s Hansel or something out here. Well at least he’s left a trail.
“… crystal meth, Ecstasy, cocaine, crack cocaine …”
“Shut up.”
The agent shuts up.
“Can’t you tell I’m fucking with you?” Gruzsa asks. He’s well and truly aggravated. If he’d been told about this right away, Kearney’s trail would still be hot. He could still pick him up and deliver him to Huertero.
But now …
“I want this cleaned up,” Gruzsa says. “Like yesterday. You tell the park rangers nothing ever happened here. You bury those fucking Indians, you ship that Kraut back to Frankfurt, you blow up those bunkers, and you send those beaners back to Mexico. Can you do that?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Don’t call me fucking sir,” Gruzsa says. “I look like some kind of officer to you?”
Gruzsa scans the debris again.
A-fucking-mazing, he thinks. Huertero comes across the border like it’s eighteen-whatever, kills the gringo, burns the place to ashes and then slips across the border again.
Fucking Don Huertero is a serious man.
So I can’t fuck around, Gruzsa thinks. He looks down at Brian’s body—if you wa
nt to call it that—and can see what happens to someone who disappoints Huertero.
What I need to do—and quickly—Gruzsa thinks as he gets back into his car, is to deliver young Timmy Kearney to Don Huertero.
Dead on delivery, so he can’t open his stupid mouth.
Problem is, Kearney’s turning out to be a tougher takedown than I thought.
Semper Fi, huh.
Gruzsa looks down to see that the ashes from his shoes are now on his carpet and he just vacuumed the goddamn thing. He’s in one murderous fucking mood when the phone rings.
“Hey, cocksucker,” Boom-Boom says.
“What do you want, lard-ass?”
“I found your boy.”
Suddenly Gruzsa’s feeling a little better.
“No shit,” he says.
“No shit.”
So then Gruzsa’s not feeling so bad about his shoes. Fuck the shoes, he thinks, I can buy lots of shoes.
Pretty soon I’m going to be rich.
45.
Tim gets Kit to sleep after Baywatch is over. Baywatch is one of the shows they both like. Kit gets off on the rescues and saving people and all that happy shit, and Tim gets off on the women jogging around in wet bathing suits. He figures that these are the kind of women who jog around in wet bathing suits on the beaches that Bobby Z would frequent.
They had a lifeguard at the public pool in Desert Hot Springs, he remembers. They called her Big Blue because she wore a bright blue one-piece bathing suit. No one ever actually saw her swim—the popular theory was that if anyone started drowning Big Blue would just jump in and raise the water level so that the drowning person would just sort of wash up on the edge of the pool. No one ever volunteered to test the theory, though, so Tim’s memory of Big Blue was her sitting up in that big chair reading Mademoiselle magazine while chewing on beef jerky.
Tim doesn’t think that any of the girls on Baywatch would even know what beef jerky is.
Anyway, he finally gets Kit to bed so he can get to work. He takes the section of PVC he bought and saws off a straight one-foot piece. He stuffs rough-grade steel wool into the pipe and then screws the end-cap down onto it. He fits this onto his pistol barrel until he sees it’ll fit nice and snug, then takes off the pipe.
46.
Tim pays for the bag of Oreos, bottles of water, cheese snacks, loaf of bread and jar of peanut butter, and the bagger asks, “Paper or plastic?”
“Plastic, please.”
He and Kit leave the Ralph’s and get back in the car.
“What’s the surprise?” Kit asks again as Tim pulls out of the parking lot and works his way back to the freeway.
“If I told you, it wouldn’t be a surprise.”
“Oh, maaaan …”
“Oh, maaaan …” Tim mocks him. “You’ll know in a few minutes.”
“So it’s someplace in San Diego …” Kit says to himself.
Kid’s having a great time.
Tim wishes he was. Fact is, he’s scared shitless. Doesn’t know what he’s walking into, doesn’t know if the Monk is righteous, doesn’t know who is going to be waiting by the elephants. Just doesn’t know and that scares him shitless.
Except it is kind of fun to take the kid on this surprise. It doesn’t seem like anyone’s ever done that for the kid before, because Kit is like out of his skull with excitement.
Tim turns off the 163 where the sign says “4th Avenue—Balboa Park—Zoological Park.”
Kit’s pretty smart and he sees the “zoo” in “zoological.”
“We’re going to the zoo!!!!!” he screams. “That’s the surprise, isn’t it?! The zoo? Right?”
“Maybe.”
“It is! I know it!” Bouncing up and down. “The zoo!”
“You never been to the zoo before?” Tim asks.
“No!”
“Neither have I,” Tim says.
They drive through Balboa Park and follow the signs to the zoo. Drive around the huge parking lot until they find a spot.
“Okay,” Tim says, “your job is to remember what row we’re in. The ostrich row.”
Picture of an ostrich on top of a big pole on their row.
“Ostrich row,” Kit repeats.
“Ostrich row.”
Because that would be the shits, Tim thinks. Pull this off and then not be able to find the car. That would be a classic Tim Kearney fuck-up.
Tim buys their tickets and can’t believe it costs fourteen bucks to get into a fucking zoo, but it does and he pays it. First thing he does inside is look at the map they gave him with the ticket. One of those cutesy fucking maps with pictures of all the animals and he looks for a picture of an elephant.
Next thing he does is get the lay of the land. The zoo sits on the slope of a big hill and the footpaths switchback up and down. There’s also one of those gondola cable things running from the bottom to the top. There’s only one exit and that’s beside the entrance where they’re standing.
“Can we ride that?” Kit asks, pointing at the cable car.
Tim consults the map and says, “Sure, why not?”
They have plenty of time because he’s made sure they’re early.
“Goody,” Kit says.
Goody? Tim thinks. Take the kid to the zoo and the kid turns into a kid.
“I think it’s a good idea,” Tim says, and they go over to the gondolas and get in one of the open-top little cars. Tim’s not thrilled that the thing rattles and shakes as it climbs up the hill, but it does give him the unexpected advantage of aerial surveillance.
So up they go. Kit’s looking at antelope and buffalo and birds and stuff and Tim’s looking over near the elephants for someone carrying a white plastic Ralph’s bag. Someone who looks like he’s not all that interested in the elephants.
Thinks he sees a tall thin guy who fits the description but isn’t sure, so when they get to the top they get out onto an observatory deck and Tim puts quarters into the big binoculars. Has to take turns with Kit so it costs about seventy-five cents for Tim to get a good enough look at the guy to decide it’s the Monk.
He isn’t fat, he isn’t wearing a brown robe and a hood, and he doesn’t look like he’s out of a Robin Hood movie, but Tim decides this guy’s the guy.
Plum Polo shirt, khaki Dockers, black baseball cap, John Lennon shades. Moccasins with no socks. White plastic Ralph’s bag.
Very hip. Standing there looking a little nervous and a little bored. Of course he’s there early, too. Half an hour early and the guy’s there already, which makes Tim even more edgy.
Tim would like to know if the guy’s alone, but there’s a crowd down there and how can you tell who’s just there and who’s, like, there. He’s scoping out single men—no families, no girlfriends—when the image goes dark.
“I’m out of quarters,” Tim says.
“What do you want to do?” Kit asks.
“Did you ever,” Tim asks, “play ‘Spy at the Zoo’?”
Kit smiles like the day just got more perfect than he thought was possible.
“How do you play that?” he asks.
“First we have to find a guy carrying a white plastic bag,” Tim says.
“Is he a bad guy?”
“Dunno,” Tim says.
But he thinks he’s probably going to find out.
47.
Boom-Boom watches the old fucker drive off in his car. Old coot steams off like he’s got a woman waiting, so Boom-Boom figures he got himself some time.
Ain’t gonna need a lot of time to do this, though, he thinks. Cheap old door—you could spring the lock with a snowball. Boom-Boom lets himself in and closes the door behind him. He’s relieved that there’s still food and clothes and shit there, so he ain’t too late.
Kearney’s a dead fucker.
Boom-Boom works fast. He has nimble hands for a fat man. He shapes the plastique into a thin line and molds it across the top of the door frame. He gently closes the door and tests its play. Then he runs a thin wire acro
ss the inside of the door, strips the end, runs it through the blasting cap and sticks it into the plastique.
When Kearney opens the door, what he’ll be doing is like pushing a plunger.
Ka-fucking-boom.
His body’s gonna be standing there wondering where its head went.
And Stinkdog’ll finally get to lift a brew down in hell.
Be nice and ready to welcome Kearney when he gets there.
Boom-Boom takes the screen off the bathroom window and squeezes out. He can sit and have a beer down the road and watch for Kearney’s shitty car to come back.
Follow Kearney back up and watch the fun.
Watch the boom-boom.
48.
Macy drives down to the biker bar and sees the man sitting in a booth in the corner. This has to be the man because he doesn’t look like a biker. He looks like a man who’s waiting to meet somebody.
That someone is me, Macy thinks. I’m ready to make some money. He looks at the man and the man points with his eyes to the seat across the booth. Macy sits down.
“Are you the guy who’s looking for someone?”
“You got something for me?” Johnson asks.
“That depends.”
Johnson isn’t in the mood for games. His shoulder hurts and he’s tired. He’s been combing the countryside for twelve long days and nights now, asking in every shitty bar and tavern, putting it out on the circuit that he’s looking for someone. Then he gets the word that some old man is trying to sell somebody except he don’t know who and what for.
Anyway, it seems to be a match—a seller looking for a buyer.
Only I ain’t in the mood for bargaining, Johnson thinks.
“Depends on what?” he growls.
“On the price,” the man says. Then adds, “My name is Macy.”
Sticks his hand out. Johnson just looks at it.
“How much do you want?” Johnson asks.
“Five thousand,” Macy whispers. His eyes light up with greed.
Johnson laughs.
“I don’t have five thousand on me,” he says.
The old bastard’s face looks disappointed.