by Jackson Ford
“Success?” Reggie asks. She sounds as if she asked Annie to go and see if there were more sodas in the fridge. On the truck’s sound system Luther Vandross is singing about endless love.
Annie slowly shakes her head. “He don’t know anything. Or he knows as much as we do, anyway.”
“What are you talking about?” I say. “He must know who did it.”
“Why?”
“Because…” I flounder. What I want to say is, He’s a scary Salvadoran gangster boss and so he must know everything that happens in LA. But it sounds so stupid, even thinking it, that I don’t know how to put it into words.
“That’s how this shit works,” Annie says, squinting in the glare coming through the windshield. “Sometimes you get lucky; sometimes…” She shrugs.
“What did you even talk about then? You were there for ever.”
“I was there for like five minutes. And we just vibed. You gotta ease these dudes into it. You can’t just straight-up ask them. They tend to get… kind of antsy.”
“Then what are we even doing here? Why—”
“We’re shaking trees,” she snaps. “It’s not an exact science. It’s a lot harder than just doing your fucking voodoo.” She snaps her fingers by her head.
“How the hell would you know?” I spit back.
Carlos talks over both of us. “OK. OK. Was there anything he knew that might help us? Anything at all?”
Annie puffs out her cheeks. “Whatever it is, it’s got the cops freaked out. They’re doing everything they can to control what gets to the media.”
“Could he have been hiding anything from you?” Reggie asks.
“Maybe. I don’t see why, though. If he had any juice, he’d probably have asked me for something in return.” She shrugs. “I don’t know what to tell you. Some leads just don’t pan out.”
The dashboard clock says it’s 11:04. We’ve got just under thirteen hours. And we have nothing. We’ve wasted two hours on this pointless lead.
I tilt my head back, rubbing my eyes. Being mad at Annie isn’t going to help. She’s an asshole, but she’s right. And going to someone as connected as this Nando Aguilar made sense. If anybody would know what’s going down, he would.
The problem is, he doesn’t. And somehow that scares me a lot more than it should. What are we dealing with here?
“So what’s next?” Paul says. The Luther Vandross track ends, another song taking its place. Shania Twain, I think.
Annie exhales through her nose as if thinking hard. “We’re going south,” she says to Paul. “Stay off the 110, though. Take Jefferson and South Central Ave. It’ll be quicker.”
Paul frowns. “We’re going to Watts?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Is going home a good idea if the cops are—”
“We’re not going home. We’re going to find Mo-Mo.”
“Who’s Mo-Mo?” Carlos says.
“Maurice Saunders. Dude I know from back when. Used to run with the Circle City Pirus on the East Side.”
“He’s a Blood?”
“Was. Got out. I ain’t seen him in a while, so I don’t know what he’s doing now, but it ain’t with the Pirus. He still got friends all over LA, and—”
“Another gangbanger?” I say. “Won’t it be Nando all over again?”
She turns to face me, more tired than angry. “Gangbanger? What are you, Teagan, a fucking district attorney from the nineties?”
“Then what—”
“What I was going to say before you talked shit about my boy, was that his mom works in the ME’s office. Only accounts, but…”
“ME?”
“Medical Examiner, man,” she says, exasperated. “The coroner. She might have seen the body, or she’ll know somebody who has. And she and her son talk all the time, so if she knows, he will too. Maybe they’ve got an angle we’re not seeing yet.”
“Oh.” I’m still not convinced, not completely, but it’s better than doing nothing.
“All righty.” Paul turns up the music, twangy guitar filling the cab. “Let’s go find Maurice.”
TWENTY-THREE
Teagan
Maurice Saunders is not in Watts.
Maurice Saunders is nowhere.
We spend four hours driving around Watts and Compton and Lynwood and South Gate looking for him. We knock on doors, make phone calls, talk to store owners and dudes on basketball courts and groups of kids hanging out on street corners. All useless. Either they have no idea who we’re talking about, or they just flat-out won’t talk to us. Every listed address we hit is a dud—vacant lots, or just the wrong people living there.
We call the ME’s office too. There’s no one called Saunders there, and they are understandably reluctant to answer when we ask if anybody in their department lives in Watts.
Reggie hacks into their system, naturally; she’s a demon, even with just a phone to work with. It’s not as quick as it would be if she was using her Rig—she has to use what she calls rooting APKs, whatever the hell those are—but she gets there. The problem? There’s nothing we can use. Just an entry about an adult male deceased from ligature strangulation. If there’s a detailed report, it hasn’t been uploaded yet.
After a while, we give up on Mo-Mo Saunders. Annie leads us to a couple of other contacts, but not a single one knows what we’re talking about. It’s around 3 p.m. when we take a break, pulling into a 7/11 just off El Segundo and Crenshaw. The fires in Burbank are a long way away, but even this far south the air is thick, heavy.
Paul leaves the ignition on and the aircon running but at least has the good grace to kill the music. “I’m going to get a soda. Anybody want anything?”
Reggie shakes her head no.
“Hold up, Paul.” Annie nods to Carlos to scooch over. “I’m coming too.”
“Is that a good idea?” Paul asks. “The police—”
“Unless you’d like me to pee in your truck,” she says brightly.
Paul, wisely, doesn’t reply.
“Me too,” Carlos says. He’s got crankier as the day has gone on, less talkative.
“Teagan?” says Paul.
Speaking is an effort. “Ramen, please. Extra egg. Extra garlic. Thick noodles.”
With a final side-eye in my direction, Paul pops the door, letting a blast of heat into the car. He, Carlos and Annie climb out, leaving Reggie and me alone in the chilly air-conditioned cab.
Too chilly, actually. As I reach over the seat to adjust the flow, Reggie says, “Would you mind leaving it on?”
“I’m just gonna turn it down a li—Shit. Sorry, Reggie. Forgot.”
Fun fact: some people with spinal cord injuries can’t sweat very well. Reggie is one of them. Keeping cool isn’t usually an issue—the office in Venice Beach is climate-controlled—but even with the aircon blasting, she looks uncomfortable.
“Don’t worry about it,” she says.
The stupid clock on the wall of Jojo’s has taken up residence in my head, and it’s impossible to stop thinking about it. “Reggie, is there any way you could talk to Tanner? Ask her to give me a little more time?”
Reggie uses her arm to adjust her position on the seat. “Let me tell you a little story about Moira Tanner.”
It’s a few seconds before she starts speaking again. “She and I were together in Bosnia when we were both a lot younger. Moira and I were seconded to NATO, working with the UN peacekeepers. That was the official cover, anyway, but what she and I were supposed to do was destabilise the Serbs from the inside.”
“I thought you were a pilot?”
“That was later.” She gives a weak cough. “As it turned out, she was much better at the whole spook thing than I was, because I got myself caught. I’d managed to steal a list of people the Serbs wanted to take out in Sarajevo. They picked me up before I could make the drop, brought me to this… I don’t know, farmhouse or something outside Nemila. They were just getting started on me—”
“Jesus, Reggie.”
<
br /> She’s looking out past the windshield, somewhere in the distance. “Moira comes up to Nemila. She tried to round up a couple of her contacts, but by that point nobody wanted to touch the Serbs. So she goes up there by herself. They’ve got guards on the perimeter, of course, which is what she was counting on.”
A car alarm goes off somewhere behind us blaring for a couple of seconds before the owner kills it.
“She ties a guard’s hands, puts tape on his mouth. Then she cuts out his eyes.”
“She what now?”
“You heard. Points the poor bastard in the direction of the farmhouse and tells him to get moving. So he does, and they all come running out, which is when Moira triggers the six pounds of C4 she’d taped to his chest.”
A grim smile slides onto her face, and for an instant there’s a different Reggie in the passenger seat. One twenty years younger, with coiled muscles and eyes on the horizon. It doesn’t make sense—this should be a bad memory for her, and yet the way she’s telling it, it’s like she wants to relive it.
“She took a bullet in the shoulder during the attack, but she gets me out anyway. Sets fire to the farmhouse first, of course, then puts an arm around my shoulders and leads me into the woods.
“Six days we were out there. I don’t remember most of it, only that there were plenty of people still after us. Next thing I know, we’re in a hospital in Graz, getting patched up. First person I see when I open my eyes is her.”
“That must have felt good.”
“Like hell. She didn’t go through all that because she wanted to save me. She wanted the information. They’d torched my copy of the list, but they hadn’t torched me yet. In Moira’s view, she needed those names to do her job, which meant she needed me. If I hadn’t seen the info, I’m pretty sure she would have forgot I existed.”
“Well, that’s pretty fucking cold.”
“Maybe. Point is, she saved lives. Mine and the people on that list. She might have done it for the wrong reasons, but she still did it. If I didn’t have the information, or she thought there was any other way she could protect people, well… maybe I’d still be in Nemila. Because what it is, Moira has and will always have one goal only: saving as many lives as possible. If you get in the way of that, you’re in her way too. And you never, ever want to be in her way.”
“That makes no sense at all.”
“Doesn’t it?”
“You’re telling me a woman who does that to someone—with the eyes and the C4—is all about saving lives?”
“And why not? Think about it. If your goal is to save as many lives as possible and to protect the interests of this country, then how does it help you to get wrapped up in the details of those lives? Look at them as numbers, and you’ll never hesitate when you’re making any decision. As long as the number saved is larger than the number lost, you’ve won. I’m not saying I agree with it, but it’s worked out pretty well for her so far. Her, and a lot of other people who will never, ever know her name.”
“Yeah, well.” I stare out the window, trying to ignore the fear twisting in my gut. “She doesn’t seem too interested in saving my life right now.”
She sighs. “You know, I am getting mighty tired of your smart-ass remarks, darling.”
“Huh?”
“Seems like every five minutes I’m having to break up a fight between you and Paul, or you and Annie. Now you’re acting out at me. You need to get your damn head in the game.”
“Reggie, I swear to God, I will reach over that seat and—”
“I beg your pardon?”
“No, you know what? I don’t need this from you. I get dragged out of bed at 4 a.m. and accused of killing someone. Then I get fucking tasered and have to use my PK to get out of it. And now I have to sit here, trying to figure out how the hell I’m gonna make it through the day, and you wanna talk to me about saving lives? Getting my head in the game?”
I give her the finger. No flair. No smart-ass remark. Just a good old-fashioned middle finger like Mama used to make.
Then I sit back, arms folded. Half of me is ashamed at the outburst, like I really am a kid throwing a temper tantrum. The other half doesn’t care. Not one little bit.
“You finished?” Reggie says.
I don’t reply.
“Well, darling, tell me when you are. It’s not like we’re out here trying to clear your name or anything.”
“And go right back to saving lives.”
“Bingo. Owning a restaurant is all well and fine, but you’re making a real impact here. More than most people can even dream of.”
Her words take a second to catch up. “Wait. How do you know about the restaurant?”
“It’s…”
“Have you been going through my stuff?”
“Teagan,” she says, exasperated, “it’s kind of hard to miss when you leave your notebook on the office coffee table.”
“Even so, you can’t just flip thr—”
“With the book open to a page that has ‘Restaurant Name Ideas’ written in big letters at the top.”
Oh, goddammit.
I drop my eyes from hers. “Yeah, well.”
“Steaks Is High is terrible, by the way. I much prefer Pasta in Numbers.”
“Actually, the number-one contender right now is Grillmatic.”
She smiles. For a few moments neither of us says anything.
“What happened to you…” she says “… what you are, you didn’t choose any of it. And God knows, the situation with Tanner isn’t something I’d wish on anybody. But we are making a difference. The people we… disrupt… on our jobs really are the bad guys.”
“You put a lot of trust in Tanner to decide who’s a bad guy.”
“Because I know how her mind works. We may not always know the exact effect we’re having on a particular situation, but I can tell you right here and now that we’re making a difference. I know you didn’t choose any of it, or us. But we have to make the best of the situation, and that means focus. No more fighting with me or with Annie and Paul. Like I said, get your head in the game.”
We fall back into silence. An easier one this time. I let my mind drift, thinking restaurants and PK and this whole insane mess. Thinking about Carlos. About our conversation last night.
Thinking about Nic.
I’m going to miss N/Naka. No question. I can’t even call Nic and apologise because I don’t know his number off the top of my head. I have a momentary fantasy of getting this all wrapped up by five o’clock, catching the killer, getting Tanner off my back, somehow making it home to change into the one decent dress in my closet—which I look damn good in, thank you very much—then sliding into the restaurant and sitting down in front of a startled Nic. What? Like I’d miss this.
Paul and Carlos climb back into the van, Paul turning the music back up a little, buckling his seat belt. Behind them Annie comes out of the store, looking even more pissed than usual. Her shades are pushed back on her forehead, her face gleaming with sweat.
“You know what?” I say. “I think I’m gonna get a Coke or something. Anybody want—”
Which is when a cop car pulls into the parking lot.
A big black-and-white Dodge Charger, tyres hissing on the rough surface. It’s not moving at speed; the two cops inside are probably mid-shift, taking a break to get a soda, just like us. Their path takes them past Annie, who is right in the middle of the parking lot, utterly exposed.
She doesn’t react. Just keeps walking, head down, as if deep in thought. Moves as if to detour around the approaching car. The two cops inside are visible now, both in dark blue LAPD uniforms. A female officer driving, her mirrored aviators reflecting the hot tarmac; her partner, a beefy dude with tribal tattoos peeking out from under his shirtsleeve, busy winding up the window as they prepare to park.
Annie walks right past them. The driver turns her head to look. As she does so, the car slows down a little.
“Oh fuck,” Carlos murmurs.
/> The cop in the driver’s seat angles the Charger towards a parking space in front of the store. Annie keeps moseying towards us, calm and easy. In the truck Reggie and Paul stare in frozen horror.
After what seems like years, Annie reaches us. “Let’s go,” she says out the side of her mouth.
Past her, the cop in the passenger seat is just climbing out. As he does so, he glances in our direction. He looks away, then looks back, frowning.
Annie opens the door, starts to climb into the truck.
“Hey,” the cop says. His partner, halfway out the car herself, turns in his direction.
“Get in the car,” I hiss at Carlos as I clamber in after Annie. It feels like the air is trying to trap me, hold me tight to the tarmac.
“Hey!” Now the cop has his gun out. His partner too. They’re charging across the lot towards us. “Stop!”
“Mierda.” Carlos gives me a shove, pushing me into the truck’s back seat, launching himself in after me.
“Go,” Reggie hisses at Paul.
“Shouldn’t we—”
“Go!” Annie yells.
TWENTY-FOUR
Teagan
You know how in movie car chases: all the sound is perfectly mixed, and you can hear every crunch and bang and tyre skid, and everything the main character says?
Yeah. It’s not like that in real life.
Everyone in the car is yelling at everyone else. Carlos is shouting at Paul to switch to semi-auto transmission, work the gears, Paul replying that he doesn’t know how, he’s always driven automatic, his words dissolving in a strangled scream as an oncoming bus nearly smears us all over El Segundo Boulevard. Annie yelling that this isn’t her fault, she didn’t do this shit. Reggie gasping at everyone to shut up. I think I’m the only one who isn’t talking.
It’s amazing I can hear any of it because Paul still has Celine Dion playing, singing about how her heart will go on.
Oh, and the cops are now following us, barking over their PA system, ordering us to pull over. You know, just to make things interesting.
“Paul, just fucking go to manual, man!” Carlos leans over his seat, jabs at something on the steering column.
