Wes was: "Yeah! Dude, come on. Let's just get the bikes and book. That's what I'm on for. Tag him again? What's the point?"
"I'm tagging the inside of his house. Just to show the asshole."
"Not me," Wes said.
"You don't have to do anything, either of you bitches. Am I asking you to do anything? Either of you?"
"I'm just saying," Nathan grumbled.
There was silence. They looked around the school yard, kids walking home, kids being picked up by parents, moms mostly, in a long line of cars in the driveway. Tiff looked their way again. Donnie brushed his hair out of his eyes and when he looked again, she'd turned away.
And she'd be interested why? he thought, sad.
Wes said, "Hey, come on, Darth. We're with you. Whatever you want, tag or trash. We're there. I'll help you get the bikes but I'm not going inside."
"All I'm asking. You two. Lookouts."
"Fuck, amen," the big kid said.
Nods all around.
"Roll?" Donnie asked.
A nod. They headed for the gate in the chain link that led to the street.
Donnie and his crew. He didn't share with them what was really going down.
What he'd tapped inside his jacket wasn't a can of Krylon. It was his father's .38 Smith & Wesson pistol.
He'd made the decision last night--after the son of a bitch, his father, pulled out the branch, tugged Donnie's pants down and whaled on him maybe because of the bike or maybe for some other reason or maybe for no fucking reason at all.
And when it was over, Donnie staggered to his feet, avoided his mother's damp red eyes and walked stiffly to his room, where he stood for a while at his computer--his keyboard was on a high table, 'cause there were plenty of times he couldn't sit down--playing Assassin's Creed, then Call of Duty, GTA 5, though he didn't shoot or jump good, you can't when your eyes are fucked up by tears. In Call of Duty, Federation soldiers kept him and the other Ghost elite special ops unit pinned down and his guys had got fucked-up because of him.
That's when he made the decision.
Donnie realized this life wasn't going to work anymore. He had two ways to go. One was to go into his father's dresser and get the little gun and put a bullet in the man's head while he slept. And as good as that would feel--so good--it meant his brother and his mother's life'd be fucked forever because Dad didn't treat them quite as bad as Donnie got treated, and he may've been a prick but at least he paid the rent and put food on the table.
So, it was number two.
He'd take his father's gun, go back to the Jew's house, with his crew. After they got the bikes--evidence--he'd have the others keep an eye out for cops and he'd go inside, tie the asshole up, and get every penny the prick had in the house, watches, the wife's jewelry. He had to be rich. Donnie's dad said all Jews were.
He could get thousands, he was sure. Tens of thousands.
With the money, he'd leave. Head to San Francisco or L.A. Maybe Hollister, where they made all the clothes. He'd get something on, and not selling ice or grass. Something real. He could sell the D.A.R.E.S. game to somebody in Silicon Valley. It wasn't that far away; maybe Tiff would visit.
Life would be good. At last. Life would be good. Donnie could almost taste it.
Chapter 87
Charles Overby, a man who loved the sun, who just felt good with a ruddy complexion, now walked toward the Guzman Connection task force room, deer level in CBI headquarters, and wasn't pleased at what he saw.
It was late afternoon and the shade outside turned the glass to a dim mirror. He looked vampiric, which, if it wasn't a word, should be. Too stressed, too busy, too much shit. From Sacramento all the way to Mexico with their smarmy, lawbreaking ally Commissioner Santos.
He stepped inside the room. Foster and Lu, Steve and Steve Two, were at one table, both on phones. DEA agent Carol Allerton sat at another, engrossed in her laptop. She seemed to prefer to play alone, Overby had noted. She didn't even notice him, so lost was she in the e-mails scrolling past on her Samsung.
"Greetings, all."
Allerton glanced at him. "Getting reports on that truck left Compton a day ago, the warehouse near the Four-oh-five. The Nazim Brothers. May have twenty ki's. Meth." This truck, Allerton explained, had been spotted on Highway 1.
Lu asked, "A semi? There? Jesus."
The highway, between Santa Barbara and Half Moon, could be tricky to drive, even in a sports car. Narrow and winding.
"That's right. I want to follow it. No reason for 'em to be taking that route, unless they're going someplace connected with Pipeline." Allerton then turned to Lu. "You free?"
Lu nodded. "Sure. Could use a hit of field." The slim man rose and stretched.
Foster was lost in his phone conversation. "Really?" Impatient, sarcastic, moving his hand in a circle. Get to the point. "Let me be transparent. That's not going to work." Foster hung up. A gesture to the phone. "CIs. Jesus. There's gotta be a union." He turned to Allerton and Lu. The man's mustache drooped asymmetrically. "Where're you going?"
Allerton explained about the mysterious truck on Highway 1.
"Contraband on One? Is there a transfer hub along that way we don't know about?" Foster seemed interested in this.
"That's what we're going to find out."
"Hope that one pans out."
Overby said to Foster, "Can you and Al Stemple check out Pedro Escalanza?"
"Who?"
"The lead to Serrano. Tia Alonzo mentioned him, remember?"
Foster's frown said no, he didn't.
"Where is this Escalanza?"
"Sandy Crest Motel." Overby explained it was a cheap tourist spot, about five miles north of Monterey.
"I guess."
"TJ ran Escalanza's sheet. Minor stuff but he's facing a couple in Lompoc. We'll work with him on that if he gives up any info that gets us to Serrano."
Foster muttered, "A lead to a lead to a lead."
"What's that?" Overby asked.
Foster didn't answer. He strode out the door.
Outside CBI, Steve Foster looked over his new partner.
"Just for the record, I'm playing along with you because"--a slight pause--"the rest of the task force wanted it. I didn't."
Kathryn Dance said pleasantly, "It's your case, Steve. I'm still Civ-Div. I just want the chance to interview Escalanza, that's all."
He muttered, repeating, "The rest of the task force." Then looked her over as if he were about to tell her something important. Reveal a secret. But he said nothing.
She waved at Albert Stemple, plodding toward his pickup truck. His cowboy boots made gritty sounds on the asphalt. Stone-faced, he nodded back.
Stemple grumbled, "So. That lead to Serrano?"
"That's it," Foster said.
"I'll follow you. Brought the truck. Was supposed to be my day off." Got inside, started the engine. It growled.
Dance and Foster got into the CBI cruiser. Dance was behind the wheel.
She punched the motel's address into her iPhone GPS and started the engine. They hit the highway, headed west. Soon the silence in the car ran up till now it seemed louder than the slipstream.
Foster, lost in his phone, read and sent some text messages. He didn't seem to mind that she was driving--some men would have made an issue of piloting. And he might have, given the fact that Dance really wasn't a great driver. She didn't enjoy vehicles, didn't blend with the road the way Michael O'Neil did.
Thinking of him now, his arms around her at the stampede in Global Adventure World. Then their fight after they'd returned.
Tapped that thought away fast. Concentrate.
She turned music on. Foster didn't seem to enjoy it but neither did the sound seem to bother him. She'd reflected that while everyone else in the task force had congratulated her on nailing the Solitude Creek unsub, Foster had said nothing. It was as if he hadn't even been aware of the other case.
Twenty minutes later, she turned off the highway and made her way down a
long winding road, Stemple's truck bouncing behind. As it meandered, from time to time they could see north and south--along the coast, misting away to Santa Cruz, the sky split by the incongruous power plant smokestacks. A shame, those. The vista was one that Ansel Adams might have recorded, using his trademark small aperture to bring the whole scene into crystalline detail.
Foster's hand slipped out and he turned down the volume.
So maybe he was a music hater.
But that wasn't it at all. While the big man's eyes were on the vista Foster said, "I have a son."
"Do you?" Dance asked.
"He's thirteen." The man's tone was different now. A flipped switch.
"What's his name?"
"Embry."
"Unusual. Nice."
"Family name. My grandmother's maiden name. A few years ago I was with our L.A. office. We were living in the valley."
The nic for San Fernando. That complex, diverse region north of the Los Angeles Basin--everything from hovels to mansions.
"There was a drive-by. Pacoima Flats Boyz had pissed off the Cedros Bloods, who knows why."
Dance could see what was coming. Oh, no. She asked, "What happened, Steve?"
"He was hanging with some kids after school. There was cross fire." Foster cleared his throat. "Hit in the temple. Vegetative state."
"I'm so sorry."
"I know I'm a prick," Foster said, his eyes on the road. "Something like that happens..." He sighed.
"I can't even imagine."
"No, you can't. And I don't mean that half as shitty as it sounds. I know I've been riding you. And I shouldn't. I just keep thinking, Serrano got away, and what if he takes out somebody else. He can fucking waste all of his own crew if he wants. But it's the kid in between the muzzle and the target that bothers me, keeps me up all night. And it's my fault as much as yours. I was there too, at the interview. I could've done something, could've asked some questions."
"We'll get him," Dance said sincerely. "We'll get Serrano."
Foster nodded. "You should've told me I'm a dick."
"I thought it."
His silver mustache rose as he gave the first smile she'd seen since the task force had been put together.
Soon they arrived at the motel, which was in the hills about three miles east of the ocean. It was on the eastern side, so there was no view of the water. Now the place was shrouded in shade, surrounded by brush and scrub oak. The first thing that Dance thought of was the Solitude Creek roadhouse, a similar setting--some human-built structure surrounded by mindful California flora.
The inn had a main office and about two dozen separate cabins. She found the one they sought and parked two buildings away. Stemple drove his truck into a space nearby. There was one car, an old Mazda sedan, faded blue, in front of the cabin. Dance consulted her phone, scrolled down the screen. "That's his, Escalanza's."
Stemple climbed out of his truck and, hand on his big gun, walked around the motel. He returned and nodded.
"Let's go talk to Senor Escalanza," Foster said.
He and Dance started forward, the wind tossing her hair. She heard a snap beside her. She saw a weapon in Foster's hand. He pulled the slide back and checked to see if a round was chambered. He eased the slide forward and holstered the weapon. He nodded. They continued along the sand-swept sidewalk past yellowing grass and squatting succulents to the cabin registered in the name of Pedro Escalanza. Bugs flew and Dance wiped sweat. You didn't have to get far from the ocean for the heat to soar, even in springtime.
At the door they looked back at Al Stemple--a hundred feet away. He glanced at them. Gave a thumbs-up.
Dance and Foster looked at each other. She nodded. They stepped to either side of the door--procedure, not to mention common sense--and Foster knocked. "Pedro Escalanza? Bureau of Investigation. We'd like to talk to you."
No answer.
Another rap.
"Please open the door. We just want to talk. It'll be to your advantage."
Nothing.
"Shit. Waste of time."
Dance gripped the door. Locked. "Try the back."
The cottages had small decks, which were accessed by sliding doors. Lawn chairs and tables sat on the uneven brick. No barbecue grills, of course; one lazy briquette and these hills would vanish in ten breaths. They walked around to this unit's deck and noted that the door was open, a frosty beer, half full, sat on the table. Foster, his hand on his weapon's grip, walked closer. "Pedro."
"Yeah?" a man's voice called. "I was in the john. Come on in."
They walked inside. And froze.
On the bathroom floor they could see two legs stretched out. Streak of blood on them. Puddling on the floor too.
Foster drew his gun and started to turn but the young man behind the curtain next to the sliding door quickly touched the agent's skull with his own gun.
He pulled Foster's Glock from his hand and shoved him forward, then closed the door.
They both turned to the lean Latino gazing at them with fierce eyes.
"Serrano," Dance whispered.
Chapter 88
They were back.
At last. Thank you, Lord.
The two boys from the other night. Except there were three of them at the moment.
Well, now that David Goldschmidt thought about it, there might've been three the other night. Only two bikes but, yes, there could have been another one then.
The other night.
The night of shame, he thought of it. His heart pounding even now, several days afterward. Palms sweating. Like Kristallnacht, the "Night of Broken Glass" in 1938, when the Germans rioted and destroyed a thousand homes and businesses of Jews throughout the country.
Goldschmidt was watching the boys on the video screen, which wasn't, as he'd told Officer Dance the other night, in the bedroom at all, but in the den. They were moving closer now, all three. Looking around, furtive. Guilt on wheels.
True, he hadn't exactly gotten a look at them the other day, not their faces--that's why he'd asked Dance for more details; he didn't want to make a mistake. But this was surely them. He'd seen their posture, their clothes, as they'd fled, after obscenely defacing his house. Besides, who else would it be?
They'd returned for their precious bikes.
Coming after the bait.
Which is why he'd kept them.
Bait...
Now he was ready. He'd called his wife in Seattle and had her stay a few days longer with her sister. Made up some story that he himself wanted to come up for the weekend. Why didn't she stay and he'd join her? She'd bought it.
As the boys stole closer still, looking around them, pausing from time to time, Goldschmidt looked up and saw them through the den window, the lace curtain.
One, the most intense, seemed to be the ringleader. He was wearing a combat jacket. Floppy hair. A second, a handsome teenager, was holding his phone, probably to record the theft. The third, big, dangerously big.
My God, they looked young. Younger than high school, Goldschmidt reckoned. But that didn't mean they weren't evil. They were probably the sons of neo-Nazis or some Aryan assholes. Such a shame they hadn't formed their own opinions before their racist fathers, and mothers too probably, got ahold of their malleable brains and turned them into monsters.
Evil...
And deadly. Deadly as all bigots were.
Which is why Goldschmidt was now holding his Beretta double-barrel shotgun, loaded with 00 buckshot, each pellet the diameter of a .33-caliber slug.
He closed the weapon with a soft click.
The law on self-defense in California is very clear...
It certainly was, Officer Dance. Once somebody was in your home and you had a reasonable fear for your safety, you could shoot them.
And for all Goldschmidt knew, they too were armed.
Because this country was America. Where guns were plentiful and reluctance to use them rare.
The boys paused on the corner. Surveilling the area. N
oting, of course, that his car was gone--he'd parked it blocks away. That the lights were out. He wasn't home. Safe to come get your Schwinns.
The door's open, kids. Come on in.
Goldschmidt rose, thumbed off the shotgun's safety and walked into the kitchen, where he opened the door to the garage. That location, he'd checked, was considered part of your home too. And all he had to do was convince the prosecutor he'd legitimately feared for his life.
He'd memorized the sentence "I used the minimum amount of force necessary under the circumstances to protect myself."
He peered through the doorway, slightly ajar.
Come on, boys. Come on.
Chapter 89
And you, Officer Dance. Your weapon too. Let's go."
Without taking his eyes off them, the Latino tugged the curtain shut, a gauzy shield against passersby.
"I'm not armed. Look, Serrano. Joaquin. Let's talk about--"
"Not armed." A smile.
"Really. I'm not."
"You say this, I say that."
"Listen--" Foster began.
"Shhh, you. Now, Agent Dance. How about you just tug up that fancy jacket of yours, turn around like my niece does, pirouette. I think that's what it's called. She in ballet class. She's pretty good."
Dance lifted her jacket and turned. Her eyes returned defiantly to his.
"Well, they don't trust you with guns, your bosses? My woman, she can shoot. She's good. You afraid of shooting. Too loud?"
Foster nodded toward the bathroom, where a man's legs were just visible. Crimson spatters covered the tile. "That's Escalanza?"
"The fuck're you to ask me questions?" the man sneered. "Shut up." He stepped to the windows and looked outside. Dance could see through the slit in the flyblown drapes. She saw no one other than Stemple, gazing out over the highway.
"Who's that big boy out there?"
Dance said, "He's with us, the Bureau of Investigation."
He returned. "Hey, there, Officer... Or, no, it's agent. Have to remember that. Si, Agent Dance. I enjoyed our conversation in the room, that interrogation room there. Always like talking to a beautiful woman. Too bad no cervezas. You get more confessions you open a bar there. Patron, Herradura, a little rum. No, I know! Hire a puta. Give somebody head, they confess fast."
Dance said evenly, "You're in a bad situation here."
He smiled.
Foster said impatiently, "Look, Serrano, whatever you have in mind, nothing good's going to come from killing law."