“What’s that?”
“Nothing.”
Tiny ramshackle houses gave way to stores, and then again to houses, albeit nicer, as they crossed into Alhambra, and nicer still in South Pasadena. Now the median was lawn and tended bushes. The sign said San Marino and the houses were nicer still. Troy had looked up Virginia Road in the Thomas Street Guide. They were getting close. He saw it. “Turn left.”
Suddenly the houses were large and lovely, the dream realized. They sat back on wide lawns; their inner workings were modern American, the latest plumbing, the latest wiring, the latest central air. They were lath and plaster, but their looks were diverse copies of English Tudor and French Provincial, Monterey Colonials, brick Williamsburg, and sprawling modern ranch. Their grounds were manicured and flowers still bloomed despite it being December. A few already had decorated Christmas trees in big front windows framed with lights.
Mad Dog whistled. “This is definitely the high-rent district.”
As the Jaguar continued, the road narrowed but the houses got bigger, now set behind high wrought-iron fences, hidden by thick greenery. The addresses told him they were getting close.
It was a two-story Mediterranean behind a brick wall topped with wrought-iron spikes. The lawn was the size of a football field. “Are you sure this is the place?” Mad Dog asked.
“We’ll keep going. Lemme see.” He turned on the map light and looked at the slip of paper. Unless Chepe had made a mistake, this was the place. “That’s the one. Let’s go back around … take another look.”
They made two more passes along the front of the house. The corner pillar of the fence had no spikes. It would take ten seconds to go over there, and they could drop into bushes. The way the road was, they would see any approaching car at some distance. The only house with a view of the corner pillar was directly across the street, and it peeked out from behind a stand of trees.
“We’ll come back in the daytime,” Troy said. “Let’s go.”
They were on Monterey Road in South Pasadena when the cellular phone rang. It was Greco. “Your big man is on the Hollywood Freeway. I told him to get off at Highland and check into the Holiday Inn. We’ll be waitin’ for you.”
“Thanks.”
“Chepe’s gonna call me pretty soon.”
“Cool. There’s a couple things I gotta see you about.”
The Jaguar was now in South Pasadena. Suddenly there was a whole row of houses decorated with brilliant Christmas lights in front-yard trees and windows. One had a creché erected on the lawn. This was the season that touches many, including Mad Dog McCain. “You know what, Troy,” he said, “you’re the only real friend I’ve got in the whole fuckin’ world.”
“C’mon, bro’, lighten up.” He said it with a grin.
“No, man. I mean it, man. I really do.”
“You’re my pardnuh,” Troy said, and disliked the lie. In truth he was nervous around Mad Dog. Too volatile; too unpredictable. Yet there was an intoxicating power in knowing he could say, “Kill so and so,” and it would be done. How could he know that murder would become a habit with Mad Dog? He imagined the Old Man of the Mountains, Hasan ibn-al-Sabbah, from whom the word assassin is derived. He hired his assassins out all over the world—gave them some hash to smoke and they cut throats, the ones they were sent to cut. Jesus, the world could use a few of them these days, instead of idiots ruling wholesale with their automatics.
After another half block, Mad Dog spoke again. “I gotta tell you, brother, I don’t like that fuckin’ Diesel.”
Troy lied again. “I thought you guys were cool. He likes you. He thinks you’re a little wild sometimes, but he just told me, ‘That is a stand-up guy.’”
“Diesel said that?”
“Yeah. No bullshit.”
“Maybe I’m wrong, but sometimes he acts like he’s some kinda tough guy ’cause he weighs two-fifty and used to be a prizefighter. Motherfuckin’ prizefighters bleed, too.”
“He doesn’t think that. He knows all the tough guys are in the grave.” It was a convict axiom that tough guys ended up in the graveyard. “But if he really fucks with you, you let me know and we’ll take care of it.”
“That’s cool. Thanks, Troy. You’re the best dude …” His voice trailed off.
Troy felt misgivings about his deception. As a child, he had heard special scorn for the deceitful, which had something to do with his choice of armed robbery as a crime. What was more direct and less deceitful than that?
Monterey Road came out of the hills of South Pasadena and crossed the bridge over the Pasadena Freeway and Arroyo Seco. Now they were again in the Los Angeles city limits. The area had been Italian and Irish working class, with a few second-generation Chicanos, ten years ago, but now it was totally Mexican. All the store signs were in Spanish. He knew about a ramp onto the inbound Pasadena. It was the oldest freeway, and instead of a lane that blended into the flow on the move, he had to jump in from a dead stop. He hit the gas pedal and the Jag accelerated like a rocket. Good old Chevy V8.
“I’m hungry,” said Mad Dog.
“Me, too. Let’s pick up Diesel and Alex at the hotel. It’s close to one of my favorite restaurants.”
“Oh, yeah. Which one is that?”
“Musso Franks on Hollywood Boulevard. They used to call it the Algonquin West.”
“I never heard of either one.”
“I’ll run it down sometime.”
At the Holiday Inn, a message was at the desk that their friends waited in the bar. Alex was sipping a screwdriver and Diesel was drinking beer. “Let’s go eat,” Troy said. “We can walk. It’s only a couple of blocks.”
While they walked, Diesel and Mad Dog followed the example of the many tourists and looked at the famous names of stage, screen, TV, music, and radio emblazoned with stars in the sidewalk.
In the restaurant booth, Troy told Diesel about the kidnapping. The big man’s first reaction was a pained expression and a shake of the head. “Oh, man, I dunno. I don’t like kidnapping a baby. I mean … damn … it’s a fucked-up crime.”
“Hey, we’re not gonna hurt the kid. He won’t even know he’s been snatched.”
“What about the Little Lindbergh law? That’s life.”
“Anything is life with three strikes,” Alex said. “Shoplifting or defrauding an innkeeper.”
“Maybe even mopery, these days,” Troy said.
“Mopery. What the fuck is mopery?”
Troy and Alex answered in unison: “Exposing yourself to a blind person.”
“What? Oh, man, quit jiving.”
“Look,” Troy said, “we’re gonna split a lotta dough. Maybe two million. And ninety-nine out of a hundred it won’t even get reported.”
“You think it’s okay, huh?”
Troy nodded slowly.
“Okay, I’m in.”
The waiter arrived with their food. As Diesel ate, he began thinking about what he would do with his share. He would invest in something real safe, maybe rental property. That would put some security under Charles, Jr. He would ask Jimmy the Face about it. Jimmy had some real flophouse S.R.O. hotels in Sacramento and Stockton. About the kidnapping, so what if the baby’s father was a kingpin drug dealer who would want to kill them? He had no idea who they were. Somebody had been trying to kill Diesel as far back as he could remember. His own crime partner, Mad Dog McCain, was scarier than any drug dealer. The thought reminded him to show Troy the newspaper clipping about the missing girls as soon as they were alone.
13
Mike Brennan, without disguise except for rimless glasses and a different hairstyle, blended perfectly into the torrent of U.S. citizens who walk across the international border from Tijuana to San Ysidro every Sunday afternoon. The day trippers pour north as the sun descends. The turnstiles whirl as fast at Border Patrolmen can glance at a face and maybe ask where they were born or where they live. A reply of San Diego or L.A. is less suspicious than some distant city. Mike had a wallet full
of identification in an alias. As he had never been arrested, or been in the army, no fingerprints were on file. Consequently, he had no fear of being arrested on the warrant from the U.S. District Court of the Central District of California. He never told anyone he was coming, so nobody could snitch him off. He had no intention of going to jail; only fools went to jail. For him it was far riskier driving on a freeway. Even if there was a risk, he was going to take it. Christmas was close and he was going to see his firstborn son. The baby lived with the mother. While still sucking a nipple and shitting in a diaper, a baby needed his mother—but when the boy was older, somewhere between eight and ten, Mike was going to take him. The mother was getting four hundred grand a year to cooperate. She also knew bad things would happen if she stopped cooperating.
While driving the Hertz rental car half the two hundred miles of megalopolis that sprawled solidly from the border to Santa Barbara, and from the sea deep into the desert (the city went wherever water could be piped via aqueduct), Mike Brennan decided against calling ahead. She’d been told not to bring any men to the house. If. Mike found one, shit was going to splatter. Mike Brennan saw the world with an arrogance similar to that of the Spanish conquistadors five centuries earlier, which meant he was governed by no law except that of his own whim. Killing someone was trivial in the court of important affairs. When he thought of his son’s mother, it was always as “the bitch,” or “the broad.” Forgotten was the interlude of affection and intimacy that had produced the child. He lived on momentary impulses; he had the emotions of a child and the power of a gang lord. Yes, he owed Chepe, but had no intention of paying the old man, who was now powerless and locked away. If the old man wanted to start trouble, Mike Brennan was ready for that, too. But Chepe was the furthest thing from his mind as he passed through the downtown interchange and went east on I-10: He was thinking of his son, whom he hadn’t seen since shortly after the baby’s birth. Christmas was close. Junior, he thought, was too young to know about Christmas presents, but soon … Visible from the freeway was a tall building dressed in lights like a giant Christmas tree. Should he check into the hotel in Pasadena before or after he went to the house?
He decided on the hotel first. As he exited the freeway and stopped for a traffic light, fat dark spots appeared on the concrete. Rain had started to fall on L.A.
The storm had continued off and on through the night and the next day. Troy went to the house in Highland Park that they’d rented to hold the baby and the nanny. Mad Dog had not wanted to take the nanny. “Man, she might identify us.”
“Nobody’s gonna call the police.”
“I don’t like it.”
“So you know how to change diapers, huh?”
“I don’t—but Diesel does.”
“He doesn’t wanna.”
“Fuck it. Do whatever you want.”
Troy playfully grabbed the thin little man by the nape of the neck and gave him a friendly shake—but the moment he touched Mad Dog, Troy remembered the newspaper clipping with the photos of the missing teenage girls and almost snatched his hand away. Mad Dog had murdered four, and probably more. There might be a time to kill, but not all the time.
Troy went to the wine cellar. The house was ancient by L.A. standards, having been built in the twenties during Prohibition, and the wine cellar was as much for hiding booze as storing wine. It had been dug into a hillside and could be reached only by raising a trap door in a hallway. A mattress and blanket were on the floor, and Diesel had purchased a package of Pampers. Troy made sure no water from the storm leaked into the wine cellar and then came back up. His stomach was nervous. Time for the caper was getting close.
Outside, the rain still fell. He picked up the cellular phone and dialed the Roosevelt Hotel, where Diesel and Mad Dog waited. They changed hotels every two or three days. “I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”
“Right. We’re makin’ our move?”
“No use waitin’, is there?”
“Uh-uh.”
“Later.”
The Jaguar was silent except for the rhythm of the windshield wipers; they became audible when the car stopped for a traffic signal. Each man was wrapped in his own thoughts and the struggle with fear. Mad Dog was the most excited. When Troy’s call came and Diesel said they were going, Mad Dog ducked into the bathroom for a quick toot of cocaine for courage. Because it was the last one he’d have until after the score, he dipped more than usual, and now his brain was surging. He felt powerful, omnipotent. The 12-gauge pump at his feet made him lord of the world. He could kill, and that, to Mad Dog, was the power of God given to man.
In the backseat, Diesel was all too aware of the man in front of him. He’d seen the trace of white powder on Mad Dog’s nose. Even without that, his charged-up demeanor was a giveaway. He thought of Troy’s reaction on sight of the newspaper photo, a grunt of disgust, a moment of reflection, and then: “We’ll decide what to do after the caper. Chill out ’til then, okay?” Diesel had nodded and maintained the façade of camaraderie with Mad Dog. It was difficult to take it when Troy was gone. His hostile contempt was mixed with a smidgen of fear. A 12-gauge shotgun was scary in the hands of a madman. Diesel would keep an eye on him.
They drove slowly past the house. A light was on in the rear.
“Somebody’s up.”
“There’s nobody there but the nanny and the kid,” Troy said. “The broad is out for the night. She goes out every Friday. Look, her car’s gone.”
As he spoke, the light went out, verifying his declaration.
Inside the house, Mike Brennan had turned off the light as he carried a beer from the kitchen to the family room, where ESPN was broadcasting a minor Bowl game. He was waiting for the bitch to come home with her boyfriend. It was delicious to imagine her reaction. She would shit her jeans. He smiled imagining it. The boyfriend better not open his mouth. Mike took the 9mm Browning from his waistband and put it on the coffee table in front of him. It signified that he would call the shots.
Meanwhile, outside the house, Diesel webbed his fingers to lift Mad Dog atop the brick pillar at the corner. Mad Dog jumped down into the bushes. Troy was next. When he was up, he reached down and helped Diesel. The big man had to grunt and strain, but he got a leg up and pulled himself the rest of the way. By then Troy had jumped down, his shoes sinking in the wet lawn. A moment later, Diesel was beside him. “C’mon,” Troy said, leading the way.
All of them were soaked through. At least the rain muffles noise, Troy thought. When they came to a corner of the house, Troy pointed Mad Dog to a niche behind the bushes under an overhang. It was dry there. He was to keep lookout with a walkie-talkie. Troy had a receiver that looked like a hearing aid.
Troy and Diesel moved along the side of the house, passing the family-room French doors. The TV set was on, throwing out its jerky gray light. Both looked in as they went by. Because they weren’t expecting it, and because human nature oftens sees what it expects, neither noticed that someone was in the big upholstered chair facing the TV screen.
Mike Brennan, however, saw the two shadows go by. He thought it was the bitch and her boyfriend back from wherever they’d been. Nobody but the nanny had been here when he arrived. Now he would give them a few minutes and catch them flagrante delicto, whatever that meant. He’d heard it in a movie and it seemed to mean what he thought it meant. He hoped he could catch them fucking … He would sure kick some ass then. The bitch was mother of his kid; he gave her beaucoup money. She had better keep her legs crossed.
Outside, the rain surged. Diesel and Troy were soaked. Dirt from a slope behind the house washed down stairs and over their shoes. They wore rubber gloves and hats pulled down. It would never come to a courtroom identification, but such precautions were routine.
At the rear door, Diesel pulled out the short jimmy bar. It would pop the door with one jerk. It proved unnecessary. The doorknob turned when Troy tried it. He always tried a door first.
“Bingo,” Troy said, easing th
e door open and motioning Diesel to follow him inside. Not expecting trouble, neither had a weapon drawn. It was so easy that Troy felt none of the usual fear at the start of a caper. It was easy, a bird’s nest on the ground.
The door between back porch and kitchen was ajar, as were the folding doors into the dining room. Beyond that was the family room with the TV still on.
Troy pushed open another door. It was a hallway beside the stairway. Ahead was the entry hall and the front door. The nanny and baby were upstairs. He motioned Diesel to follow and swung around the banister and started up the carpeted stairs on light feet. I don’t like doing this, he told himself clearly—but instantly locked out the thought with he who hesitates is lost.
The dim glow of a night-light came from the partially opened door. The nanny, a chunky woman in her forties, spoke in Spanish. Diesel was to grab her while Troy took the child.
Troy pushed the door open and Diesel went past. The nanny was removing a diaper from the baby on a changing table. She turned to throw the dirty diaper in a basket, saw the intruders in a mirror, and gasped.
Diesel pounced like a cat. He had a fist clenched to hit her in the ribs, but instead grabbed her arm. “Shaddup!” he said.
“Watch the kid,” Troy said. He was afraid Diesel would pull the nanny away and the baby would fall from the table.
“Got it,” Diesel said, holding the nanny with one hand and putting the other on the baby’s naked stomach. Startled by the sudden intruders and the tension in the air, the baby began crying.
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