by Don Winslow
Lou can’t tell if she’s joking or not.
Fucking is a meeting of the genitals, dinner a meeting of the minds, and Lou gets the impression that the former is more common on the 101.
She slides down and starts to administer oral resuscitation.
“That’s a little optimistic,” Lou says.
“I’m an optimist.”
“Hey, Sharon?” Lou says. “Why don’t you tell me what you really want?”
She looks up at him.
“Why are you telling me this?” Lou asks.
Sharon had just confessed to one felony and conspiracy in another. She could go away for twelve to twenty.
“I’m scared.” She looks scared now. Maybe being naked makes her look more scared, certainly vulnerable. “Will you protect me?”
“I’ll protect you.” You didn’t have to sleep with me to get protection, he thinks.
But you sure as hell thought you did. Or you thought you did to make a deal, because now he hears Sharon say, “I gave you this information. Will that keep me out of jail?”
“I think we can work something out,” Lou says. “What did you tell this guy? The one who threatened you?”
“Everything I told you.”
So “Davis,” as Sharon calls him, is going to take down Shahbazi in the hotel room, and then the yellow-haired guy is going to take down Davis as he leaves.
Except, Lou thinks, Davis isn’t walking out of that hotel room.
The security guy’s name is Nelson.
Robert David Nelson.
Bob.
Davis got his name from Sharon and runs the guy down so he knows everything about him—retired Milwaukee cop come to San Diego for the sun and the good life, married, two grown kids.
Clean record.
A straight shooter.
He’s watched Nelson for three days—watched him go out on a courier job with Ben Haddad (so Sammy has smartened up), watched him grocery-shopping with his wife, Linda, at Albertson’s, watched him go to the gym and sweat on the exercise bike.
Watched him go to a bar afterward and have one beer.
Then the guy went home.
No drinking problem.
No girl on the side.
He’s in bed by nine-thirty.
This is not a guy who’s playing an angle or who’s going to do something rash or stupid.
Which is good, Davis knows.
Crime 101: Always better to go up against smart than stupid.
Davis has disappeared.
Doesn’t matter to Ormon.
He might not know where the man is, but he knows where he’s going to be.
And when.
Which is, like, better.
McGuire gets the call. “Lou—”
“What?”
“Sam Kassem is on the line,” McGuire tells him. “Says he’s got a guy hanging outside who’s wrong.”
They’re on the roll in a minute.
Just Lou’s unit, in unmarked cars.
If this is his guy, he doesn’t want radio cars spooking him away.
But it shouldn’t be my guy, Lou thinks, his stomach churning as it seems to take forever to get to El Cajon. My guy doesn’t hit the same vendor twice. And my guy has a much bigger job in the works—he’s not going to jack it up with a low-level smash-and-grab.
This is just Sam getting hinky from being hit.
Lou gets on the horn to his people. “Give it a wide berth, but surround the block. McGuire and I will go in.”
McGuire pulls up at the end of the block and sees a late-model Camaro parked outside Sam’s store.
“He went in,” McGuire says. “If it’s going to go down, it’s going now.”
Goddamn it, Lou thinks. Has my guy lost his shit?
Lou gets out of the car, draws his Glock 9 and holds it behind his back. He hasn’t drawn his weapon in action . . . well, ever.
Just then a guy bursts out of the store.
A bunch of Sam’s watches in one hand, a pistol in the other.
Lou goes into the standard shooting position, aims center mass, and yells, “Police! Stop! Drop the gun!”
Hears McGuire shouting, “Get down on the ground! Down on the ground!”
The guy freezes.
Hesitates.
Making his choice.
“Don’t do it!” Lou yells. “Don’t do it!”
Please, don’t do it.
But the guy does it.
Swings the pistol toward them.
Lou pulls the trigger and keeps pulling it.
So does McGuire.
The guy melts to the sidewalk.
“It’s your guy,” McGuire says, standing over the body.
“It’s not my guy,” Lou says, suddenly exhausted, the adrenaline surge crashing back down.
“How do you know?”
“I just know.”
A few watches against ten mil?
It’s not even Crime 101.
It’s Math 101.
Looking out the big window at the Pacific pounding the rocks below, Lou feels sick and disgusted.
He’s never killed anyone before.
It feels awful.
Not just that there’ll be a shooting board—he knows it will clear him—and that he’ll be off duty until it does, but because he took another human’s life. That’s not why he became a cop. He became a cop to help people, and now there’s a person dead over some lousy watches.
It makes him want to pull the pin.
Lou knows what he should do.
Well, he knows what he should do.
He’s lived by the rules his whole life.
He thinks about it, though.
About going the other way with it.
Because his robber left a seam in his plan, and Lou has found it.
Eleven mil in cash and merch?
Those are serious numbers.
Life-changing numbers.
Quit-the-job-and-live-on-the-beach-the-rest-of-your-life numbers.
He gets it now, why people choose to live in places like this. Beautiful views, beautiful people.
Beautiful sunsets.
Insane splashes of reds, oranges and purples as the sea turns from blue to gray to black. I mean, Lou thinks, if you’re going to ride off into the sunset, this would be the sunset to ride off into.
He’s thinking this when the doorbell rings.
It’s Angie.
“Hi,” she says.
She looks great.
New hairstyle. A little shorter, a few highlights. Looks like she’s dropped a couple of pounds.
“To answer the question behind your cop eyes,” she says, “someone was coming through the gate, and I walked in behind them.”
“I wasn’t going to ask.”
“Can I come in?”
He steps aside and lets her through.
She gazes out the big window. “Wow . . . look at you, Lou. A beach dweller. Is this what they call a ‘whitewater view’?”
“I think so, yeah.”
“Can you afford this? I mean, the rent must be . . .”
Like it’s any of your business, Lou thinks. “For a while.”
“Then what?”
He shrugs. “Then we’ll see.”
“Oh, you are becoming a beach bum,” Angie says. “Tell me you haven’t started surfing.”
“I haven’t started surfing,” Lou says. “But I’m thinking about it. You want a smoothie?”
“No, I don’t want a smoothie.”
“What do you want, Angie?” Lou asks. “Why did you come here?”
She looks at him for a long moment, her eyes filling. Then she says, “I came to see if you want to get back together.”
Oh.
That’s unexpected, he thinks. What he’s really wanted, but not at all what he expected. Of course I want to get back together, he thinks, but then he hears himself say, “You know what, Angie? I really don’t.”
Going, you know, the other way with it.
/> Crime 101: Never be predictable.
* * *
Davis never feels nervous the day of a job, just an adrenaline jolt, which is necessary. This morning he does feels nervous, though, edgy. Is it because this is his last job, he wonders, or because it’s a job his gut knows that he shouldn’t do?
It’s not too late, he tells himself, looking out the picture window at the ocean.
You can still just drive away.
Go north up the 101 and get lost.
Don’t do this thing.
Lou, standing on his balcony sipping his first cup of coffee, is thinking pretty much the same thing.
Don’t do it.
He’s telling himself this even as he climbs into a suit and straps his weapon—a Glock 9—on.
He walks down into the garage and gets into his car.
A new car is parked beside his.
A dark green Mustang that looks retro.
Like that movie, Lou thinks. What was it?
Oh, yeah, Bullitt.
Steve McQueen.
Davis drives the Mustang to the airport.
In a 2019 Bullitt Mustang.
Dark green. (Of course.)
5.OL Ti-VCT V8.
3.73 Torsen limited-slip rear axle.
6-speed manual transmission with rev matching.
Dual exhaust with quad tips.
Lou sees the courier come down the escalator.
He walks up to him. “Mr. Foster?”
Foster nods.
His right hand clutches a Halliburton briefcase.
“The car is just outside,” Lou says, and walks Foster out to the sidewalk.
The courier balks when he sees the old Civic. It isn’t right, it doesn’t fit. He turns and looks at Lou, who shows him his badge.
“Trust me,” Lou says. “It’s in your best interest to get in the car.”
Foster gets into the passenger side, Lou slides into the driver’s seat. “We can play this one of two ways, Mr. Foster. I can arrest you now for interstate transportation of undeclared valuables—”
“I’m just a courier,” Foster says. “I don’t know the provenance of these—”
“And I’m sure an ambitious young prosecutor is going to believe that,” Lou says. “Or we can play this my way.”
Foster takes Door Number Two.
The seam.
Davis waits in the cell phone lot of the airport.
He watches Nelson pull in.
The security guard is early, like they always are, well before the courier’s flight is due to land. What he doesn’t want is someone standing on the sidewalk outside the terminal with two suitcases worth five mil in his hands.
Davis has the flight info, too.
From Sharon.
The flight info, the courier’s name (Foster), even a photo of him.
Davis is dressed for the job. Black suit, white shirt, red tie, black leather shoes. The security guys always look tight, to give the client a sense of professionalism.
A guy is going to protect your life and your money, you don’t want him looking like a bobo or a clown. And you want your security guy to look like your standard car-service driver.
Davis gets it—loose clothes, loose work.
McQueen always looked tight, sharp.
He knew what Davis knows.
Crime 101: Dress for your business.
The courier won’t have any luggage. He’ll walk straight off the plane to the street.
About six minutes at a decent pace.
Davis checks the flight-tracker app on his phone. The flight has landed. He gets out of the car, walks over to Nelson’s Lincoln Town Car, smiles and raps on the driver’s-side window.
Nelson rolls it down.
Davis angles his body so only Nelson can see the SIG pointed at his face. “Put your hands on the steering wheel, Bob.”
Nelson does.
Davis holds his cell phone up with his left hand, shows Nelson a live feed of his house—Linda trimming the hedge along the driveway.
“Here’s how it’s going to work,” Davis says. “You’re going to slowly hand me your phone. Then you’re going to sit here for two hours and keep your mouth shut. After that you drive home to Linda, because if you do sit here for two hours, she’ll still be there to go home to. You’ll lose your job, but you’ll still have your wife and your Milwaukee pension. Are we good?”
“Yes.”
Davis thinks so, too. A guy might risk his own life, but he won’t risk his wife’s. “Okay, your phone.”
Nelson slowly reaches to the console and hands Davis his cell phone. “Don’t hurt my wife.”
“That’s up to you.”
As Davis walks back and gets into his car, a text comes on Nelson’s phone. I’M DOWN AND HEADED OUT.
Davis types, WILL BE RIGHT THERE, SIR.
Ormon’s not at the airport.
He’s skipping the prelims.
Ormon’s outside L’Auberge, waiting for the main event. Got him a MAC-10 under his red faux-leather jacket, itching to do its thing.
And Ormon, he don’t care how many people he scratches off.
For eleven mil, are you kidding me right now?
He looks at his phone.
The plane has landed.
Davis should be going into his act.
His . . . what-do-you-call-it? Finale.
Davis is waiting when the courier emerges from the terminal.
He gets out of the car, signals him, and holds the passenger door open. The courier looks a little askance at the Mustang.
“If I need speed, sir,” Davis says, “I want to have it.”
The courier gets in.
Davis closes the door, walks around, slips back behind the wheel, checks the rearview mirror, and pulls out.
“There’s congestion on the 5,” Davis says, “so I thought I’d take the 101, if that’s all right.”
“I’m from New York,” the courier says. “I wouldn’t know the 5 from the 101 from a hole in the ground. You all talk in numbers out here. Let’s just take the fastest route.”
“I believe this will be.”
Bullshit, Lou thinks. The guy is a freak. For one of the best, smartest criminals Lou has ever known, this guy just loves the PCH. Or maybe this is a valedictory ride, a sentimental last journey up the 101.
Maybe mine, too, Lou thinks, if this doesn’t go down the way I’ve planned.
“This is the Bullitt car, right?” Lou asks.
I know this guy, Davis thinks.
I’ve seen him before.
When Davis sees someone he doesn’t know more than once—especially in two different locations—he wants to know why.
Crime 101: There’s a word for a man who believes in coincidence: the defendant.
But he can’t place the guy.
Doesn’t matter, Davis thinks. What Crime 101 demands is that he pull over, get out of the car and walk away.
But he doesn’t.
Lou says, “Bullitt or The Getaway?”
“I’m sorry, sir?”
“You’re obviously a McQueen fan,” Lou says. “Which was the best movie, Bullitt, The Great Escape or The Getaway?”
Keep the guy talking, Lou thinks. Because he’s getting hinky. Lou can feel it. The guy has glanced in the rearview mirror twice now, stealing a look, and Lou’s a little worried that he’s recognized him from the coffee place. If he puts me together in the same spot as Sharon Coombs, he’ll pull out of this now.
Crime 101.
“I have to go with Bullitt,” Davis says. “Although they’re all pretty great.”
He takes the opportunity to really look in the mirror and try to figure out where he knows this guy from.
“That car chase, right?” the courier says.
“Right?” Davis asks.
“I have to go with The Getaway,” the courier says. “McQueen’s character.”
“Doc McCoy.”
“Doc McCoy.”
Davis pulls off onto
Grand Avenue and drives west through Pacific Beach and then turns north onto Mission Boulevard, which is what the PCH is called in this neighborhood. From Mission he takes the left dogleg onto La Jolla Boulevard, up through Bird Rock and into the oh-so-ritzy “Village” itself.
Then it hits him.
The coffee place.
The guy was sitting at a table across from him and Sharon.
He’s made me, Lou thinks. Can see it in his eyes in the mirror, see his hands grip the wheel a little tighter.
Lou decides to push it, because it’s better to know now than later. “You know my favorite McQueen movie?”
“What’s that?”
“The Thomas Crown Affair,” Lou says.
Smiling at him.
“McQueen was an art thief, right?” Davis says.
“That’s right,” Lou says. “Faye Dunaway was an insurance broker.”
Get out, Davis thinks.
Pull this car over and get out.
Or turn around and shoot this guy in the face.
Lou sees Davis’s hand slide over to the center console.
So that’s where the gun is, he thinks.
He slides his own hand under his jacket to the Glock.
This could go down right now.
Maybe it’s the eleven mil, the walkaway score, maybe it’s that he just doesn’t like getting played, but Davis keeps driving and says, “I don’t think she was a broker, I think she was an investigator.”
“You’re right,” the courier says.
They head up La Jolla Boulevard, past La Jolla Cove, turn onto Prospect, then onto Torrey Pines, all through UCSD, past Torrey Pines Golf Course, then down the long hill that bursts open onto Torrey Pines State Beach, then up the steep hill into the town of Del Mar.
They each know now that they’re going to see this thing out.
Playing chicken on the 101.
Now Davis says, “We’re almost there, sir.”
Yes we are, Lou thinks.
We are almost where we’re going.
Lou rings the doorbell to Suite 243.
Davis stands behind him, facing backward, looking back down the hallway.
Shahbazi comes to the door. He wears a gray linen suit with a white shirt open at the collar. “Mr. Foster?”
“Yes.”
“Please come in.”
Davis goes first, checks the room and then waves Lou in.
Lou shuts the door behind him.
Davis’s gun, a SIG Sauer, is already out. “No one has to get hurt here. The gun, under your jacket. Set it down on the bed.”
Shahbazi looks at Lou. “Do something.”
