by William Oday
“Whoa, now. Let’s give her something to remember.”
The V10 shot caller drew closer.
Mr. Famous leaned in and kissed the cashier’s cheek.
The cashier shrieked.
Mason snapped another pic. “Got it. Good?”
“One more!” she said and planted her lips on Ryan’s before he could pull away.
Mason snapped pics as fast as his finger could tap the screen.
“There! Got plenty. Can we move this along now?”
Ryan returned to the customer side of the register.
“Oh my God! Oh my God! Juanita is never gonna believe this!”
Mason picked up the vitamin drink and handed it to her.
“Ring it up please.”
Ryan looked at him, through him.
“What?” Mason asked.
“Do you know that guy?” Ryan said while looking behind him.
Mason turned his head, cap still low, and came face to face with Cesar.
He barely managed to duck as a fist the size of a brick flew through the space where his head had just been. Not meeting flesh, the fist continued on and thundered into Ryan’s nose. It smashed like a ripe tomato. Blood splattered on the cashier’s maroon frock. His legs crumbled and he collapsed to the floor.
Through slurred, wet words, he yelled, “Not my nose! Not my nose!”
Mason didn’t have time to worry about the actor’s billion dollar nose because Cesar lunged at him. They both went down, fists flying hard and fast. He landed a knee to the shot caller’s chin that should’ve knocked him out. It barely fazed him.
A thunderous punch slammed into Mason’s kidney and pain shocked his body, blurred his vision. Another blow struck his temple and his head bounced off the tile floor. He knew he couldn’t last. The savage ferocity and brute force would break him.
Mason rolled underneath Cesar and got a foot up under his hip. He pushed with all his strength and managed to get some separation. With the space created, he snapped a kick at Cesar’s groin and felt a satisfying impact.
Cesar groaned and his hold weakened. With a gigantic heave, Mason shoved the larger man to the side. He scrambled to his feet as Cesar did the same.
Their eyes locked.
Mason had no intention of getting tangled up with him again. He reached under his shirt and had his Glock 19 up and aimed in less than a second.
The cashier ducked behind the register.
“Don’t make me do it, Cesar!”
Ryan curled into a ball on the ground.
“I don’t want to die! I don’t want to die!”
People surrounding them screamed and pushed back against those leaning in and over to get a better look.
Mr. Famous blubbered and wept, making the situation more dangerous, more charged.
Mason kicked him in the butt. Hard. But not too hard. “Shut up!”
“He’s gonna kill me!” Ryan hid his face in his hands.
“Shut your mouth!”
“Someone get my agent! Get my agent!”
Cesar’s cold gaze never left his. His hand eased behind his back. Mason knew he’d have a weapon at the small of his back. One thin layer of wife-beater was all that covered whatever he had tucked back there.
“Don’t do it!” Mason yelled.
“Drop the weapon!”
Mason turned to see a .38 Special not five feet away and pointed at his chest.
25
The round-bellied LAPD officer stood to the side of Mason with a well-worn revolver clamped in his hands. His hard gaze steady as the muzzle covered him.
“Okay. Easy now,” Mason said.
Cesar’s hand was still behind his back. Mason couldn’t let him draw.
The officer didn’t appear rattled. He’d been in gunfights before.
Ryan crawled to the officer and clung to his leg. “This guy threatened to shoot me! I can’t die! I have a sequel about to be green lit!”
The officer tried to shake him loose but the actor had a death grip on his ankle.
Cesar grinned and slowly raised his hands, acting the part of the victim.
“This crazy guy pulled a gun on us. He wants to kill us all. He’s loco. You gotta shoot him!”
“Drop the gun, now!” The officer thumbed the hammer back and it clicked into position.
“Listen, sir,” Mason said. “I’m not the dangerous one here. It’s this guy.” He nodded at Cesar. “He’ll kill us both if I lower my pistol.”
“You’re the one with a gun in your hand. This is your last chance to drop it.”
Mason instinctively felt the Glock’s front sight hovering on Cesar’s center mass. He glanced back and forth, from Cesar’s satisfied smirk to the guard’s intense stare.
He was stuck.
If he lowered the Glock, the guard wouldn’t shoot him, but he had no doubt Cesar would a second later. The guard would probably die too. If he shot Cesar, the guard would shoot him. If he somehow survived, he’d have a hell of a time convincing a jury the shooting was a justified use of deadly force.
Things were moving too fast. Too out of control.
“Save me!” Ryan screamed as he tried to climb the officer’s leg. He grabbed the officer’s belt and tried to pull himself up. The officer stumbled forward and his aim fell to the floor as he fought to keep from falling down.
Mason lunged at the older man, his offhand reaching for the hand holding the revolver. If he could get it under control, he could defuse the situation. His hand wrapped around the officer’s wrist. The officer yanked back and the revolver fired.
A bullet ripped through the right side of Ryan’s face. His previously flawless, high cheekbone spurted blood across the tile floor. The actor collapsed, holding the wound.
“My face! My face! My career!”
Somewhere in a distant part of Mason’s brain, he registered the screams of the surrounding store patrons.
The officer was stronger than he looked. He stubbornly fought to retain his firearm. Mason chopped down on the officer’s wrist with the composite Glock frame. Thin bones snapped and the grip gave way. Mason yanked the revolver free and turned to cover Cesar.
BOOM.
Blood exploded from the dark blue cloth covering the officer’s chest.
Cesar held a polished chrome .50 caliber Desert Eagle. Smoke wafted from the end of the barrel.
Mason dove behind a health drink mini-fridge as another round fired. Carbonated spray misted the air. He dropped his shoulder and continued the roll, landing in a crouch.
He brought the Glock up and the front sight aligned on an exposed portion of Cesar’s shoulder.
He didn’t hesitate.
The Glock jumped in his grip and a red hole punctured the beefy shoulder. Cesar dove behind the end of the counter.
“I’m gonna kill you, blanco!”
Mason looked at the actor lying on the ground. He continued screaming about his face, his future in acting. He was lucky to be alive.
The officer’s head lolled to the side and their eyes met. He held his heaving chest like he could hold in the air escaping from his punctured lung. His hands covered the wheezing, crimson wound. He choked and gagged as red bubbles frothed out of his mouth. His chances didn’t look good.
Mason couldn’t continue the fight here. Cesar had no compunctions about killing every bystander unlucky enough to be caught in the crossfire. None of these people deserved to die.
He had to draw Cesar outside. Away from the crowded checkout lines. At least in the parking lot, there would be plenty of steel to stop bullets instead of plenty of flesh.
In a low crouch, Mason ran down the length of the checkout lines and made it to the entrance. He peeked over a counter and saw Cesar lying on the ground holding his shoulder.
Cesar spotted him.
BOOM.
Mason ducked as a round shattered the glass deli display case behind him. He took a quick breath and broke for the automatic doors.
BOOM.
A round zipped behind him as he dove to the sidewalk outside. He scrambled behind a low concrete wall and brought his front sight up on the entrance.
Now he had him. As soon as Cesar showed his face outside, Mason would have him dead to rights. He looked around. Several patrons stood frozen in the parking lot, apparently shut down by being caught in a shootout like they’d seen in the movies.
They were collateral damage waiting to happen.
“Get out of here before you get shot!”
That got a couple of them moving away from the entrance. Incredibly, a few still remained rooted to the pavement. They were going to get themselves killed.
Mason pointed the Glock in the air and fired off two shots.
That did it. The last few statues broke into runs.
Mason looked back to the entrance, to the fatal funnel of fire. Cesar would show up any second now and that second would be his last.
Sirens blared in the distance.
The automatic doors slid apart.
Mason sighted and curled his pointer finger inside the trigger guard.
Terrified customers spilled out of the store and ran for the parking lot. One saw him and screamed.
“There’s the killer! There’s the shooter!”
Several others screamed and ran away from Mason.
Him? The killer?
The sirens got louder.
A spray of bullets blasted the concrete wall around him. Flecks of masonry bit into his arms and hands. He glanced over and saw one of Cesar’s lieutenants from that morning behind a car, an assault rifle held over the hood firing in his direction.
Mason was exposed and outgunned.
Three black and whites screamed down Lincoln and screeched to a halt at the parking lot entrance. He knew they’d have no idea what was going on and that they’d be just as likely to target him as the gang members.
This wasn’t a battle he could win. Not without people dying that didn’t deserve to die.
Another blast of bullets chewed into the asphalt a few feet away and sprayed fragments in his face. Chunks slammed into the dark lenses of his ballistic sunglasses. The lenses held.
It was an impossible tactical situation. He didn’t want to leave such a dangerous opponent on the loose. Not after that opponent had shown such a willingness to use extreme violence. Cesar’s freedom put Mason in danger.
Worse, it put his family in danger.
The shot caller needed to be taken down. Sent to jail or sent to the grave. Mason didn’t have a preference. But continuing the fight wasn’t an option. The likely collateral damage would be catastrophic.
Mason ducked behind a line of shopping carts and took off.
26
The sun dipped toward the western horizon. Mason sat on the porch of his house staring at the orange glow that burned across the sky. How had it gone so wrong so fast? A hollow pit in his stomach seemed to suck him down.
Something nudged his hand.
He looked down and saw Max with a tennis ball in his mouth, wagging his tail and waiting for Mason to take the ball.
Mason patted his head and then took the ball. He flung it to the far corner of the front yard. Far corner in Venice meant about twenty feet away.
He glanced up at the blazing sky and sighed.
The fiasco at Whole Foods was a huge cluster bomb of calamity waiting to explode on his life. He’d tried to do the right thing, but it had ended up making things worse.
Was the officer still alive?
Max brought back the grubby, slobber-soaked ball and dropped it with a wet slap in Mason’s hand. He held it, reflecting on the things you did for those you loved, and aimed another throw. This time at the neighbor’s wall that ran along the property line.
He didn’t know much about them. They were new on the block and weren’t big on socializing, and their property reflected it. They’d leveled the tasteful old Craftsman soon after purchasing it and replaced it with a modern glass and concrete structure. To Mason’s experienced eye, the result looked more like a bunker than a house.
It stuck out on their street like a sore thumb. The eight foot concrete wall surrounding the front yard was a big part of that.
One of Otis’ favorite past times was bagging on the house and the uncharacteristic flavor it added to the neighborhood. Mason would just listen to the rambling indictments and nod.
That said, smearing Max’s spit on the gray matte finish of their wall gave him a small satisfaction. He also didn’t mind that a spit-soaked ball sometimes ended up in their front yard. It always ended up in his own yard by the next morning.
He winged another throw at the tall wall and the ball hit with a splat. He looked up and caught the last peek of the sun as it descended over the single block of houses that separated his house from the beach and the Pacific Ocean beyond.
A desperate meow made Mason jump.
Mr. Piddles sat on the Crayfords’ front porch looking at Mason with expectant disdain. His ample belly covered his paws completely. He looked more like a furry ball than a cat.
“Time for dinner?” Mason said.
Max ambled over to Mr. Piddles and dropped the slobbery tennis ball. Max could tear the fat cat apart if he believed it was possible. When Max was a puppy, Mr. Piddles had set the pecking order with numerous sharp claws to his wet nose.
So even though now Max outweighed the cat by nearly a hundred pounds, the cat was still king.
Max sniffed at Mr. Piddles and then went in for a lick. Mr. Piddles hissed and slashed a claw at his muzzle. Max jumped back and dropped to the lawn with his rear held high. His tail wagged furiously.
Mr. Piddles hissed and bared little fangs.
“Give him space, Max,” Mason said as he walked over between them, worried more for Max than Mr. Piddles.
“Want some dinner?” Mason slowly extended his hand and attempted to pat Mr. Piddles’ back. A paw flew at his fingers and he yanked back just in time. He was about to foolishly try again when a thumping bass sound caught his attention.
He turned and froze as a red 1964 Impala turned the corner and headed down the street.
Metallic red paint and polished chrome. The frame floating inches above the street. It approached at a slow speed, slower than any normal person drove.
Mason dropped his hand to the Glock 19 tucked inside his waistband.
Dark tinted windows hid the occupants. The thumping music grew louder as it approached.
Was it Cesar and his soldiers?
Theresa and Holly were inside the house. They’d be out of the field of fire if it came to that.
He didn’t recognize the vehicle, but it wasn’t unknown to see cars like that cruise down their street.
The Impala crept toward his house and then passed by and kept going.
Mason kept his hand at the ready as the low rider cruised down the street.
They didn’t know where he lived. Maybe it was nothing. Then again, Venice wasn’t that big. The car took a right at the end of the street and disappeared.
His pocket buzzed with an incoming call. He dug out the phone. Max came back with the sodden ball and dropped it at Mason’s feet. He gave it his best soccer kick and swiped the screen to answer Miro’s call.
“Miro.”
“Sarge!”
“What do you have for me?”
“Got her location. Iridia is staying at The Standard, in downtown LA.”
Mason knew the spot. He’d once gone for drinks at the bar on the roof. Typical swanky, hipster watering hole. The place was an operational nightmare. A bunch of drunks jammed into a small space with minimal points of egress and twenty floors of stairs if the elevators went kaput.
“Anything else I should know?”
“Her father is frantic. I mean loony bin crazy to get her on that flight out of Santa Monica.”
The loud voice of what was presumably said father boomed in the background. Then the sounds of scuffling and his voice blasted from the little speaker.
/> “You must get her to the airport! Immediately! Promise me! Promise me you’ll save her! My dearest Iridia…”
“Calm down, sir,” Mason replied, “I—“
“Save my daughter!”
Great. If her dad was this crazy, his supermodel wannabe actress daughter was sure to be worse. If it was anybody other than Miro asking, he’d tell them where to stick this cursed job.
“You have nothing to worry about, Mr.—“
“Don’t fail me!”
Mason was about to respond when he heard the phone change hands again. The volume of the father’s hysterics faded.
“Hey, Sarge,” Miro said in a quiet voice, “I got a funny feeling about this.”
“What do you mean?”
“Not sure. Don’t have all the intel. But something big’s going down. Been escorting this guy around the last few days. He’s way inside the beltway. Been making the rounds all over DC and the Pentagon. Visiting some serious big shots, POTUS included.”
The President of the United States? This operation just got better and better. Mason sighed, wishing he could back out. He couldn’t.
“Thanks for the heads-up. I’ll notify you when we arrive at the airport.”
“Thank you, Sarge. And,” Miro paused, “can you get an autograph for me?”
Mason bit down on a scathing reply. He didn’t have time for this nonsense, but he owed Miro more than could be repaid. “I’ll see what I can do.”
“Maybe a pic showing some skin too?”
“Don’t get greedy.”
“Thanks, Sarge. Corporal Pike out!”
The phone went silent and Mason noticed Max in a sit in front of him. Next to him, Mr. Piddles howled.
“You’re whining? If only you understood how my day was going.”
He stared at the for an instant.
Maybe it was Mr. Piddle’s expression, but he got the distinct impression that the cat couldn’t care less.
27
The tools of his trade lay spread out on the bedroom dresser. Preparing for close protection work was as much a ritual as gearing up for an op back in Iraq. Only it happened in his bedroom now instead of on the hood of a humvee.
