They hung up and the call ended.
I pulled a Camel from the pack and lit up. I had been luckier than I deserved. The gods had been smiling on me after all. And now I would have Alpha, Beta, Delta and Epsilon, all together in one place. I couldn’t have wished for more. Kill: one had just become kill: four.
There wasn’t a lot I could do that day, so I spent time cleaning my Sigs and my knife and catching up on some sleep. At seven thirty that evening Maria came to my room and woke me. She didn’t knock. She opened the door and stood leaning on the jamb, looking down at me.
“You didn’t eat all day. You want some supper, gringo?”
I sat up and swung my legs off the bed. “You’re still here? Why do you call me gringo?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. You are a gringo.”
“OK, Majicana, I’ll have some supper.”
“You think that is gonna offend me?”
I stood. “I hope so.”
She came into the room and put her hand on my chest, smiling up into my face. “Yeah? You want to offend me? Why?”
“Then maybe you’ll stop calling me gringo. My name is John. John Smith.”
“Bullshit. Your name is Lacklan. You told me already, remember?”
“My name is not gringo. I’m going to have a shower. I’ll be out in five.”
She slipped her arms around me and kissed my neck. “You gonna help me, John?”
“Not if you keep doing that, no. Let me finish what I have to do, then we’ll talk.”
She let go of me and gave me a small shove. “OK, malo! Have it your way. You goin’ out tonight?”
“Late, yeah.”
“How late?”
“Why do you want to know, Maria?”
I went into the bathroom and turned on the shower in the cubicle. She leaned on the door, watching me. “Maybe I’m getting jealous.”
“Sure, and maybe Santa Claus really exists after all. I’m going out late. I don’t know what time. Stop pushing.”
I stood under the shower for ten minutes. Toweled myself dry and dressed in black jeans and a black roll neck sweater. Then I went out to reception. Don was at the desk, looking through some papers. He eyed me and said, “She set a table for you in the garden. You’re dining al fresco tonight.” He didn’t seem very amused.
“I should be gone by tomorrow.”
He glanced at me, nodded once and carried on with his papers. “Maybe we all will be.”
I was about to ask him what he meant, but decided I didn’t really want to know. I turned and went into the garden. She had set the table for me under the palms. The air was turning grainy in the dusk. The palms looked tall and thin, and strangely sinister in the dying light.
Fourteen
The sky above looked like somebody had tried to spray-paint it luminous orange and then thrown a few pink chemtrails across it before giving up on the job. Darkness was creeping in from the east and the birds, who’d been busy all day, were beginning to sound sporadic and sleepy. Out on the road, streetlamps and headlamps were beginning to come on, as though they’d somehow been triggered by the cooling air. The world was preparing for evening.
The door opened and Maria came out, holding a plate, a paper napkin and a knife and fork. She put a large steak and French fries in front of me, then set out the cutlery and sat opposite.
“Que aproveche.”
“Thanks.”
As I cut into the meat she said, “You have no respect for me because I was a whore in my previous life.”
I sighed and set down the knife and fork. “I can’t do this right now, Maria.”
“What is so important?”
“I can’t tell you. But I have already given you my answer. When the job is done we’ll talk about your pimp.”
She gave a snort that you could only describe as disdainful and looked away. “Talk. Is all anybody ever does: talk, talk. But Julio does not talk. He beats, he kicks, he cuts, but he does not talk.”
I picked up my knife and fork again. “Nobody talks more than you do, Maria. Do you ever listen? Keep talking and you can eat the damned steak yourself and I will take myself right through that door.”
She looked at my face a moment, then at my steak, then turned away toward the creeping shadows. Above, the luminous sky had turned the color of crushed, dirty blueberries, and the birds had gone quiet. Suddenly it was nighttime. I cut into the steak and started eating again.
After a couple of minutes she said, “I was a kid in Mexico. I didn’t come here until I was fifteen.” I glanced at her but carried on eating. “My mom was a puta, but she was nice. She had five kids. She had a chulo, that’s like a pimp. Most of the time he was OK, only when he did coke he would hit her sometimes. We had to stay quiet when he did that.”
I didn’t answer. I was trying not to listen. I needed to focus on the job. I didn’t need to be hearing Maria’s story right then, but she went on.
“You know what my favorite thing in the whole world was? I was…” She shook her head. “I don’t know, eight, nine… right up to twelve years old. I loved the TV.” I glanced at her again, remembering suddenly Jim the night before. Maria was smiling, like she was a million miles away in some dream, remembering something magical. “The TV. Is stupid. I can see now it is stupid, but back then it was hope…” She looked at me and for a moment her smile was natural and real. “It was like a picture of what life could be. And the people you saw on the screen, they were like what people should be like. The ones I loved best were the American shows, like Friends, How I met your Mom, and Frasier!” She reached out her hand and touched my arm. “Frasier was so funny. He was so stupid, but he had a perfect family. When I was a kid I thought all American families were like Frasier’s. I thought all families should be like this, you know?”
I nodded. “I know.”
“It was something to aim for, something to fight for. A dream. I really believed that if I could get to California, it would all be OK. I could meet friends like Joey and Monica, fall in love with some perfect guy and have a family like Frasier.” She sat back, staring at the tall palms. “What do you call that,” she said. “Social… not stereotypes…”
I smiled in spite of myself. She was an interesting woman. For a moment I thought, in a different place and at a different time, who knew? She must have sensed it because she turned her head to face me. We locked eyes for a moment.
Then I said, “Archetypes. They are archetypes.” I remembered Jim and the IIC and sighed. “More than archetypes, they are role models we are meant to aspire to, even though we can never achieve them.”
“Is a crazy world, huh?” I nodded. “Instead of a luxury apartment in Seattle, I have a guest house in Watts. Instead of a career as a psychiatrist, I am a whore. And instead of a perfect love, I got a pimp who wants to turn my guest house, my second chance, into a whorehouse.”
“I understand, Maria.”
She smiled a lopsided smile. “You think I still watch TV?”
I shook my head. “I hope not.”
She gave a sad little snort. “You think I have no hope.”
I shook my head. “No. I think you have. But I think chasing somebody else’s dream about what life and people should be like is a waste of time and effort. Especially if that dream belongs to some asshole in Hollywood. You let Hollywood make your dreams for you, you may as well lie down and die. Make your own dreams, about real things and real people, then you stand a chance of making them come true, if you fight like hell and never give up.”
Her face didn’t change. All that changed was that a tear spilled from her eyes and trailed down to the corner of her mouth.
“I have lost so many people. People I loved, destroyed, their souls destroyed. So many people dead who did not need to die. They died without dreams…”
“I know. I’ve seen them die too.” I stood. “I have to go.” I held her eye for a long moment, then smiled and made a fair imitation of a German accent. “But I’ll be back
.”
She laughed and wiped the tear from her cheek. “Another archetype.”
“I’ll help you, Maria. But I have to do this first.”
She gave a small nod and I left her gazing down at her hands on the table.
I returned to my room, slipped the Fairbairn & Sykes into my boot, put the Sig in my waistband, under the pullover, and stuffed a ski mask into my back pocket. Anything else I was going to need I had in the trunk of the Zombie.
I walked through the reception area and stepped into the night. I stopped a moment to look around. The streetlamps were listless. The roads were empty of traffic. The drapes were drawn over windows that showed only the flickering of televised reality, where even evil was idealized. Somewhere, out in the dark, urban sprawl, I could hear the thud and throb of speakers in a car: a car owned by some badass who had learned from some Hollywood role model exactly how to be badass.
I sighed and walked away, toward the church where I had left the Zombie. Behind me I was aware of a car approaching, cruising. From its smoked windows came the throb and buzz of rap. I ignored it and turned into 108th Street, but as I did, I was aware of the car stopping outside El Toro. I heard the four doors slam one after another, like a volley of shots. The throb of the bass followed me across the road and as I took my keys from my pocket it began to dawn on me what was happening.
Either she had known he was coming today, or she had orchestrated it. I remembered her in my room, asking what time I was going out. I sighed and turned back. I had no time for this, but I also knew I couldn’t walk away.
I walked back toward El Toro, with the throb of the bass growing louder. As I came around the corner I saw it was a BMW 5 series with tinted windows. The car was empty. But noise was still pumping inside. I glanced through the glass door of the guesthouse and saw four tough guys jerking their knees as they talked to Don. He looked scared. I walked around to the driver’s side, leaned in and turned the music off. Then I made my way toward the reception.
As I pushed through the door I saw that the four guys had turned and were gaping at me, and Don was gaping over their shoulders. Their expressions ranged from incredulity to rage. A bit farther back, Maria had come in from the garden and was watching the scene, frowning, curious.
I took a second to calibrate them. Maria’s pimp, Julio, was the second from my right. I could tell because, though he wasn’t the biggest, he was the craziest, and you could see that in his eyes. Maybe Jim and the IIC were getting to me, but as I looked into his eyes I knew that the TV had told him once too often that he was a psychopath and a sociopath; and that didn’t mean he was a sad, damaged person. It meant he was of above average intelligence, ruthless and sexy. And he was too damned stupid to realize that what the TV had told him was bullshit—invented by the TV to sell TV to people as stupid as him.
He was in his early thirties, with unintelligent pale blue eyes, a scraggy black moustache and an Italian suit as vulgar as it was expensive. On his left there was a fat guy also dressed in off the peg Armani. His eyes were almost black and he had a heavy gold chain around his neck. You could see by the way he strutted that he was proud of that chain.
On Julio the chulo’s right he had a boy of about eighteen, who obviously lived at the gym. He was going to be doing some kind of martial arts. I figured Muay Thai or kick boxing. The fourth guy in the gang was the real muscle. He looked like he did weight lifting. He had massive thighs and powerful arms, and his jaw looked like if you hit it you’d break your hand. He’d be looking for the clinch or the take down. He’d be slow, but he’d easily crush you to death.
I took that in, in about a second, while they were all still struggling with their above average sociopath IQs to understand how and why I had dared turn their throbbing dick music off. I pointed at Julio. “You the chulo?”
He was moving his chin in and out, jerking his knees, like a chicken getting down to rap. “Who de fock are you, pendejo? I’m gonna cut you fockin’ open, man!”
“Leave now, don’t come back, and I won’t kill you.”
There must have been some magic in the words, because they all took up the chicken dance and started jerking their knees and their elbows, and looking at each other with, ‘can you believe this guy?’ faces.
I pointed at the guy with the gold chain. “You first. I’ll break your neck with your chain.” I pointed at the big gorilla. “Then you. I’ll rupture your heart. Then you,” I pointed at the Muay Thai Kid. “I’ll break your neck. You?” I looked at Julio. “You I’m going to make an example of. Your call.”
They were nothing if not predictable. They did what they always did, and sent their gorilla in first to soften me up before the sociopath badasses came in for the kill. He barreled at me with his arms outstretched and an ugly snarl on his face, like he was planning to chew off my ear. I held his eye until he was two feet away, then I slipped my left hand behind his head, like I was going to kiss him, and rammed the heel of my right hand into the tip of his jaw, levering it hard to my left. I heard the cartilage crunch. The pain must have been unbelievable. He started screaming, short, hysterical screams and took two steps back. On his third scream I put all my two hundred and twenty pounds into a downward plunging punch into his solar plexus that dragged his belly and his diaphragm down, winding him and sending his heart into spasm. His eyes bulged, he tried to gasp through his broken mouth. I put him out of his misery. I delivered two massive punches straight to his sternum. He went into cardiac arrest. His eyes rolled back in their sockets and he went straight over backward. The whole thing had taken less than three seconds.
They were staring down at him with expressions of utter stupidity on their faces. I didn’t wait for them to react. I took a long step to my right, bitch-slapped the fat guy with my open right hand and grabbed his chain with my left. Another step put him between me and the other two, who were just beginning to wake up to what was happening. I yanked hard on the chain. He came toward me. I bitch-slapped him a second time and looped the chain around his neck so it formed a noose. Muay Thai was charging on my left and Julio was coming at me on my right. I took another big step back and hauled savagely on the chain, cutting off his wind. He clawed at his throat. I pulled him to the right so he stumbled into Julio’s path and, as he did, I moved to intercept Muay Thai on the other side.
The only real fighting he’d ever done was on broken people his gorilla pal had already chewed up. All his martial arts, up to that point, had been in the gym or in his daydreams.
If you’re going to fight with kicks you need to be as fast as Bruce Lee. Anything slower is a death sentence. Muay Thai threw a slow sidekick at my head. I caught his ankle in the crook of my right elbow and kicked him hard in the balls. He fell awkwardly, wheezing and gasping. His right leg dragged down on the chain that was still in my left hand, choking the fat guy who was wearing it. It was a mass of confusion and Julio was on the other side of it, looking worried. I saw him reach for a knife in his pocket and smiled at him.
I let go of Muay Thai’s leg. He fell into the fetal position. I yanked hard on the chain. He was turning a nasty blue color. I spun him around, hooked my right forearm under his jaw and pressed the back left of his head. A small jerk and the fat guy’s worries were all over. I let him fall at Julio’s feet. He backed away, holding his blade out in front of him. I ignored him and stepped over to Muay Thai, who was still clutching at his busted balls. I kicked him in the shoulder so he rolled over, face down, and stamped on the back of his neck. I heard the vertebrae snap.
Julio now looked like a very scared chulo. I pointed at the corpses. “Just like I said. You like to beat up on women, huh? Abuse them and exploit them? You think you’re a badass because you abuse the weak?” I smiled. “That doesn’t make you a badass, Julio. That makes you a pussy.”
I stepped forward and kicked him hard and fast in the knee. I felt the cartilage crack and he fell, gripping his shattered joint and repeating, “Oh God! Oh shit, man! Oh God!”
I
rolled him on his back and knelt on his chest. I picked up his knife and wrapped his right hand around the hilt. He was staring at me with bulging eyes as I positioned it over his heart. He whimpered, “What are you doing, man…?”
“I’m making an example of you.”
I held it in place with my left hand, like a nail, over his fifth intercostals, and hammered it savagely home with my right fist. He quivered and jerked for a few seconds, then went still. I looked up at Don. He was very still and very pale.
I stood. “You can take credit for this. It was an invasion of your premises. You were defending yourself, and Maria.” I shrugged. “Or you can say it was a passing stranger who came to your assistance. Either way, the cops are not going to argue on this one.”
I looked over at where Maria was still standing by the door and pointed at the man I had just killed. “Was this the guy?”
She nodded. “Yeah, that was him.”
I stepped into the street again. The streetlamps were still listless and the TVs still flickered behind the drapes. I turned and made my way back to the Zombie.
I climbed in and sat behind the wheel, pressed the starter and slipped away in silence, onto Kalmia Street and Santa Ana Boulevard, wondering why I had done what I had done. It was not my problem. I was here to do a job, to protect my family, to defeat an enemy that threatened me and those I loved. So why had I risked it all to stop a pimp from exploiting an ex-whore? I was not a hero. I was not out to save anybody—to save the world. That was Marni’s job, and Gibbons’ and Jim’s. Not mine.
So why had I done it?
I ended up telling myself it was because I didn’t like bullies. Because ever since I was a kid I had hated men like my father, who abused the weak to make themselves feel strong. And besides, what I was going to do that night at the vineyard could play out in a couple of different ways. And one of those ways could make Maria a useful ally. That thought made me feel better and I smiled to myself as I accelerated silently toward Santa Monica and the Pacific Coast Highway.
OMEGA SERIES BOX SET: Books 5-8 Page 49
