She Rides Shotgun

by Jordan Harper

  “I didn’t know what to think.”

  “I missed.”

  “You were wild,” he said. “A little handgun like that, you can’t be wild.”

  “Next time I’ll be calm,” Polly said.

  He was going to tell her then that there wouldn’t be a next time. But before he could, a shadow broke itself away from the side of the building. It moved toward the green monster. Just enough time for Nate to realize all the guns in the car were empty, to know it could happen this fast.

  30

  CHARLOTTE

  HUNTINGTON BEACH/KOREATOWN/NORTH HOLLYWOOD

  Charlotte had been in full relaxation mode when they came for her. She wore an old Electric Wizard T-shirt and some boxers. Her blown-glass magic-mushroom-shaped bowl stuffed with some indica. Diet soda and rum. A bag of chips. A plan to get baked and watch sitcoms until she drifted off to sludgy sleep. She had just torched the bowl. She played dragon, made rar-rar noises when she exhaled smoke. She touched the red flesh on her wrist where Nate had held her. At the thought of him her cells all rubbed together, a low and beautiful drone all through her. Trysts in backseats, in cheap motels, all flavored with the thrill of being a double agent. Nate had a lot of the things in him that had drawn her to Dick. The big difference was, being with Nate didn’t make her hate herself. It scared her in ways both bad and good, but she didn’t hate herself.

  The doorbell chimed soft, but it shocked her like a klaxon. Just stoner paranoia, she figured. She padded to the front door. The double-agent voice inside her said keep the chain on. She kept the chain on. She opened the door. A featherwood named Kim stood on her porch popping gum. Beauty-mark piercings on her cheeks. Pancake makeup over rubble skin.

  “Hey,” Kim said.

  “Hey,” Charlotte said. Stoner paranoia goosed her. Kim had never visited her. They’d talked at parties, at the beach, those weird soirees with beer and hot dogs and white power talk. Charlotte struggled to recall anything about Kim other than she hated her dad and she drank Midori like a teenager.

  “There’s a thing at the beach,” Kim said.

  They know.

  Charlotte looked over Kim’s shoulder to the car parked out front. Smoke and rockabilly drifted from the car windows. Blurry man shapes inside. She couldn’t make them out to know if she knew them or not. But she could feel their eyes on her.

  “I don’t know . . .”

  “Come on,” Kim said. “We’ll swing by the liquor store, then hit the beach.”

  They know.

  “I’m sort of in for the night,” Charlotte said. She wondered what windows in her house were open. How fast she could get them all shut. If something like that would even stop them.

  “You sure?” Kim popped her gum. Her eyes were flat like a lizard’s.

  “Yeah,” Charlotte said.

  Pop.

  Pop.

  Pop.

  “Okay,” Kim said with a smile that said we know. “Maybe later.”

  “Bet,” Charlotte said. She shut the door. She leaned against it waiting for the kick to come. She ran to the kitchen, pulled a butcher’s knife from its stand. She ran down the hall past the living room where her ice cream melted. She came in, grabbed her cell phone, and ran back to the hallway. She slammed the bathroom door shut behind her, feeling how flimsy and hollow it was, how easily a kick would bring it down. She climbed into the bathtub. She dialed the nine and the one and the one and held her thumb hovering over the call button. The knife clenched in the other hand. Hours passed like that, every creak or thud in the night rolling through her like a missile impact. Near four in the morning, when the weed and adrenaline had moved mostly through her, she formed a plan. She left the bathroom, knife and phone at the ready. She packed a bag. She went out into the night. Dashed to her car. Waited for them to come for her. But they never came.

  She drove into L.A. Everything in the city seemed so much closer together when the traffic was gone. She found an all-night diner in Koreatown. She ate beef soup with drunk twenty-something Korean kids in club clothes. She drove to the Valley, found a side street, and slept in her car. When she got to the address Nate had given her during one of their nights together, they were gone. She waited for them. It was just past nightfall when she saw his car pull up. She went to the car window and found Nate pointing a pistol at her. The girl sat shotgun. She had blood on her face.

  31

  POLLY

  NORTH HOLLYWOOD

  Air is a soup. It’s how planes can swim through the sky. With Charlotte in the house now the soup of the air had thickened almost to jelly.

  Polly and her dad still trained in the morning. But it was different now. Charlotte watched them. Polly could feel her eyes. Polly’s punches missed more and her chokes weren’t as tight.

  Ruined.

  He made a bed for himself on the couch so Charlotte could take his room. A dumb lie told for nobody. Polly could feel unsaid things in every word between the two of them. A language she almost understood, but didn’t quite.

  Charlotte kept her distance from Polly. She smiled those big dumb smiles adults used on kids when they didn’t know how to act around them. Her voice too loud like little ears couldn’t hear as good.

  At night there were no more hunts. They ate takeout dinners. They had the money from Tiny Tim’s backpack, enough to last them months easy.

  “But it’s not about money,” Polly said on the second huntless night, as Charlotte spent the forever she always spent in the shower. “It’s about making them quit, you said.”

  “It’s time to change plans,” he said.

  “Because of her.”

  “No,” he said. “’Cause of Chinatown.”

  “I won’t do it again. I promised already. I said I was sorry.”

  He looked at her that old way, that I’m grown-up and you’re not way that made her want to scream.

  “It’s time to change tactics,” he said. “Way back at the beginning, you said if Crazy Craig was the president of Aryan Steel and he was the one who wanted us dead, we should just make him not be president anymore. Remember?”

  “I guess.”

  “Well, you were right and I was wrong. We can’t keep trying to bleed them out with little cuts. I can’t have you in the line of fire anymore.”

  “I want—”

  “I can’t have it,” he said with eyes like do not push it.

  “So what then?” Polly asked. “Time to go to Perdido?”

  “I don’t even know if Perdido is real,” he said. “Could be just a dream.”

  “We can find out,” she said.

  “There’s someplace I’m going,” he said. “Someplace you can’t go.”

  “You promised,” Polly said. “You promised we’d stick together.”

  “Where I’m going is just a bar,” her dad said. “No kids allowed. That’s all.”

  “So I won’t go inside. I’ll hide under a blanket.”

  “Fine,” he said.

  “Because you promised. You promised we were a team.”

  For a long time there wasn’t anything between them but the shower’s white noise and thick, thick air.

  “Yeah,” he said. “I promised.”

  And she knew he meant it but she also knew there was something else, some other deeper lie beneath it.

  32

  NATE

  WALNUT PARK/FROGTOWN

  Nate walked to the door of the Dew Drop thinking about how gunslingers die. Billy the Kid, Wild Bill Hickok, Jesse James. All three of those bad boys died without knowing it was coming. Wild Bill took a bullet in the head while playing cards. Jesse James took one with his face to the wall, straightening a picture. Billy the Kid died in the dark, asking who is it? to the man who murdered him. That’s how gunslingers died. Real life didn’t give you a showdown. Real life put a bullet in the back of your head.

  At places like the Dew Drop.

  Me for her.

  He walked in the door.

  The Dew D
rop was a cowboy bar. Not dumb hats and country music. Cowboys as in operators. Heavies. Nick had called them life bars, as in for people in the life. Usually they were owned by ex-cons, guys who had come out the other side. Guys who weren’t in the life themselves anymore, but who knew guys and could make connections.

  The Dew Drop had barred windows. Inside was dim, lit only by a couple of bulbs and a couple of neon signs. The pool table had a path worn down the middle by a thousand breaking cue balls. It smelled of old smoke that twenty years of a smoking ban could never scrub out.

  The Dew Drop belonged to La Eme. The guy behind the bar was a classic cowboy, Mexi edition. Jail tats faded gray on his arms. He had canyons on his face and the eyes of a man who had been hunted once. You never lost the eyes, Nate guessed. Once you were hunted, you could never rest again.

  Nate sympathized. He knew the war had changed him forever. He was so goddamn tired. He slept in snatches, small noises in the night waking him like cold water on his face. A gun under his pillow. He slept so little his dreams had started leaking into his waking life. Just in small ways—a creature moving in the corner of his eyes, but when he turned to see it there was nothing there, shit like that. Sometimes he heard noises, people calling his name. He didn’t think he was crazy, just tired. But he couldn’t be sure. How would he know?

  He sat at the bar. The old hardcase walked over.

  “Do you for?”

  “Beer to start. Whatever’s cheap.”

  The hardcase pulled a bottle from ice. Nate paid for it, pushed across a twenty.

  “Keep that,” he said.

  “Gracias,” the old man said, pocketing the twenty. “You just come home?”

  “Susanville.”

  The hardcase’s eyes danced over Nate.

  “Did a bit there once myself,” the hardcase said. “Where were you?”

  “B-71.”

  “Hot as hell when you were there?”

  “Only when it wasn’t freezing.”

  The hardcase nodded like that’s right. It felt to Nate like the exchange of passwords.

  “You got a name?” the old hardcase asked.

  Nate dug into his pocket, pushed a thousand dollars across the bar like that’s my name.

  “I need to talk to some carnales. I need someone close to the root. Someone who can get a ruling from La Eme.”

  The hardcase left the cash on the table.

  “Going to need more info than that.”

  “I want to put somebody in the hat,” Nate said. “Somebody on the inside. A big name. That’s all I’m going to say for now.”

  The hardcase eyechecked Nate. Nate let him look. You didn’t have to look mean. You just thought about where you’d been. Your eyes would do the rest.

  The bartender took the money. Nate’s eyes had passed the test.

  “Tomorrow,” he said. “Round this time. I’ll scare somebody up for you.”

  Polly and the bear poked their heads out from under the blanket in the back as Nate started the car.

  “Did you find them?”

  “Maybe,” he said. “Got to come back tomorrow.”

  “You think it will work?”

  “Yeah,” he lied.

  They drove for a while, Nate turning it all over in his head. Polly played drums on the dash. She had the bear practice punches. Nate looked at her and felt his heart crawl up his throat.

  Me for her.

  He could have laughed at how fucked up life was. That soon as you found something to live for, you found something to die for too. But he guessed in the end it was a good trade.

  He checked back in every day for three days. The hardcase just said wait. Nate waited. He trained with Polly. He watched Charlotte try to break through to the girl. Wondered how on earth she could be good enough for what he needed from her.

  On the third night, they sat around the house post-dinner. Dodgers on the teevee. Polly on the floor, as far as she could be from Charlotte and still be in the room. She folded the bear’s legs into the lotus position.

  “What’s he doing?” Charlotte asked. Polly mean-mugged her. Charlotte held the gaze.

  “Come on, what’s he doing?”

  “He’s meditating,” Polly said, that old are-you-going-to-laugh-at-me tone in her voice. Nate almost interrupted, worried that Charlotte would dig the trench between her and Polly even deeper.

  “That’s cool,” Charlotte said. “He’s a good bear, huh?”

  Polly placed the bear’s paws facing up on his lap. The yogi pose complete.

  “He’s a ninja,” Polly said.

  The bear put a paw on his snout like shhh.

  “No shit,” Charlotte said. “Like an assassin?”

  “He’s a good ninja.”

  “What’s that mean?”

  “He goes on missions. Like at night when we’re asleep. Like maybe he hears a kid crying, so he takes a bow and arrow, and shoots some ice cream into the kid’s mouth. That’s a good ninja.”

  Charlotte laughed.

  “I never knew that,” Nate said.

  “You never asked,” Polly said. She and Charlotte shared a look and it felt to Nate like something twisted into place, something locked.

  Maybe it would be enough.

  The fourth day, the bartender put his beer down in front of him, gave a nod, and Nate knew right away the nod wasn’t meant for him. It was a signal. Nate heard steps behind him. He wondered if he’d feel the bullet if that’s what was coming.

  A guy took the seat next to him. His wifebeater showed off the black-hand tattoo on his bicep. It marked him as La Eme for life. His eyes did the same.

  “You been looking for us?” A voice dragged through the ashes of a thousand cigarettes.

  “Yeah. Need work done.”

  “I hear you, dog. Only you look the type to put in the work yourself, you know what I’m saying?”

  “My name is Nate McClusky.” He saw how the man’s face didn’t change. He already knew who Nate was. “I need to put a name in the hat. Somebody on the inside. Somebody big.”

  “Pay for your beer,” the man said. “We’re taking a ride, me and you.”

  “My daughter’s in the car,” Nate said.

  The man smiled.

  “That’s the legend. My name’s Chato. Get your daughter, man. She’s safe on my mama’s name. We’re going to Frogtown. There’s a council waiting for you.”

  Nate took the man’s measure. Nate didn’t know he had any choice but to trust him now. He hoped Chato loved his mother.

  They drove a two-car caravan through the city. Chato drove fast. Nate ran red lights to keep up. It jangled his nerves. Made his cop paranoia redline. Polly sat shotgun and watched the world pass. She was growing like wildfire now. Like she moved through time faster than the rest of the world.

  They parked by the big concrete canyon called the L.A. River. The smog-blurred buildings of downtown rose in the distance. Polly let the bear dangle from her hand as they walked. They walked into an apartment building courtyard, Nate and Polly two steps behind the man. A double handful of apartments ringed the courtyard, but no sounds of life emerged. No cooking smells, no music. No burble of children playing. This wasn’t an apartment complex. This was a fortress. They passed two baby gangsters not much older than Polly. They tried out their mad dogs on Nate. Nate let it slide. The bear in Polly’s hands didn’t. The bear waved at them. They got confused. They lost their mad dogs. Nate laughed. Gunfighter-death thoughts cut the laugh off early.

  The apartment complex had a community center attached. Outside it, two young carnales. Their mad dogs were a significant improvement over the last pair. Chato opened the door to the community center. It stank of weed smoke and spilled beer, sweat and gunpowder. Nate knew if the room was empty, he was dead. He walked through the door anyway.

  The room was full of full-tilt-boogie La Eme soldiers. The carnales were veterans. They were old school. They were dappled with shank scars and bullet wounds. They wore ink letters on t
heir knuckles so their fists spelled out words. love/hate. fist/fuck. iron/will. They kept their jailhouse swole on. Seeing all these killers made Nate relax. They were going to listen to him. It meant he was going to live. For another five minutes, anyway.

  The man in the center of them all radiated pure king power. El Hombre himself. Boxer Rios. Nate knew the stories. Boxer was the biggest La Eme soldier on this side of a prison wall. Aztec gods of war crawled over him. Warriors held bloody hearts aloft. The ink on his scarred knuckles spelled out stay/down. The ink looked old. He was the father of the style. Boxer studied Nate. His mad dog terrifying, nothing but empty rooms behind his eyes.

  “So you’re the guy been giving the Steel fits, huh?” Boxer asked. His voice throat-cut raspy. “You and this little chica here. You a little outlaw, chica?”

  “Goddamn right,” Polly said. The bear nodded like uh-huh. The carnales laughed.

  “Little badass. Hear you’re real bad for whiteboy business.”

  “Give it to him,” Nate said. Polly walked toward Boxer, fishing a brick of cash out of her backpack. Boxer eyeball-counted it as Polly moved back to Nate’s side.

  “About five grand. What you trying to buy with it?”

  “My life. My daughter’s life.”

  “That ain’t mine to give,” Boxer said. “The greenlight on you, that’s straight whiteboy business.”

  “I get it,” Nate said. “I want you to touch somebody I can’t touch.”

  Boxer nodded at one of the carnales. They vanished the cash.

  “So you want somebody put in the hat, huh? Maybe you tell me who that is.”

  “Crazy Craig Hollington.”

  Boxer smiled like whiteboy fucking loco.

  “You say it like it’s no thing,” he said.

  “I can’t touch him. You can. You want more than the five large, tell me what you want.”

  He held back the last bargaining chip. The one he knew they’d take. The one he didn’t want to pay. But he would if he had to.