Bev waited for her to leave before pressing the tissue to her moist cheeks.
Chapter 20
Multiple-voice yelling rose above the blaring TV inside. Tim gave the doorbell a double ring and flattened himself to the wall beside the knob. Bear waited back from the porch, thumb break unsnapped on his holster.
Half-moon indentations pressed into the soft wood of the upper doorjamb, baton or flashlight impressions from domestic-disturbance calls, a warning for future responders. Repeat customer. Tim banged the door with a fist, not eager for a door-kick entry after he’d broadcast his presence. The Aryan Brotherhood was a “blood-in, blood-out” gang, and whatever they might learn here wasn’t worth being somebody’s initiation kill.
More shouting. Tim looked at Bear and shrugged. Probable cause? Probably not.
He tried the knob, and it gave up a full turn. A sign from the Locksmith in the Sky.
Past the raised step of the entryway, in the living room, a hefty woman in a stretched off-white undershirt sat angrily against the arm of a couch. A white male wearing muscle pants paced before her, the tattooed bulges of his muscular torso glimmering with sweat. An inked shamrock, complete with three sixes, stood out on the pale dip between his shoulder blades. A small stalactite of blood stained the woman’s shirt, hanging from the collar. Matted hair clung to her face, pasted around the nasty gash beside her eye. Pinned down by various remote controls, a newspaper lay sectioned on a cable-spool table. On a TV split with undulating gray stripes, Rachel and Chandler bemoaned some intricacy of Monica’s anal retentiveness. In the corner a Doberman lay curled up, inexplicably asleep.
“Howdy, folks!” Bear yelled against the din of the TV.
Yves Dagrain turned, perfectly calm, the rectangles of his six-pack shifting like the scales of a snake.
The woman continued chattering. “Course I didn’t fucking call, baby. What do you think I am? I’d never call.” And then, to Tim: “Get out of here.” She heaved her purse in their vicinity. A ganglion of key chains hit the carpet at their feet, along with a sprinkling of change and a travel bottle of Dermablend, the preferred makeup of battered women. Given the amount of purse debris littering the carpet, a direct hit would’ve knocked Tim’s head off.
Bear said wearily, “You had to go and do that.”
Yves chuckled as Bear frisked her and tightened flex-cuffs around her chubby wrists. Then Bear fought with the remotes, clicking past a vacuum-seal storage bag infomercial and a parrot on ice skates before finding a mute button. The abrupt silence was blissful.
“Okay,” Tim said. “Let’s start this over. We’re deputy U.S. marshals. We have a few questions for you.”
Bear deposited the woman on a La-Z-Boy. Yves remained standing.
Tim walked over to the adjacent kitchen and dug through the freezer. He tossed a bag of frozen corn at the woman, which she pressed to her eye.
“Thanks,” Yves said. “Now, what the fuck do you want?”
“I want to ask you about Walker Jameson.”
“Can’t say I’ve had the pleasure.”
Tim reached over, pulled the L.A. Times front section from the cable-spool table, and held the photo of Terminal Island’s watchtower in front of Yves’s face. “Really?”
“I don’t know nothin’ ’bout that,” Yves announced proudly. “I don’t read.”
Tim’s eyes flicked to the silenced TV. Melissa Yueh, KCOM’s tireless anchor, was gabbing from location at the San Pedro landfill, a photo of Walker Jameson occupying the upper right quadrant of the screen. “Blind, too?”
“My eyes work good enough to see an illegal search of my private property.”
“Okay. You want to play this game? Battery on your woman here. You’re the AB’s top dog for Southern California, you’ve got responsibilities now. Do you really want another stint in the pen?”
“That shit only works on smart people.”
“Reason?”
“Intimidation.”
“Pretend you’re smart, then.”
Yves took a deep breath and held it. His exhale smelled of marijuana. He aimed a finger at Walker’s picture on the TV. “I ain’t makin’ no specific threats, and I ain’t sayin’ I’ll do nuthin’, but that boy’s a dead man. Period.”
“Thank you,” Bear said.
“For what?”
“For punctuating your sentences. I have a hard time keeping up otherwise.”
Tim rose and pulled the woman to her feet.
“Don’t you fuckin’ talk to Jenna. You can’t take her away. That’s an infraction of my constitutional rights.”
“Actually,” Tim said, “Gonzales overturned the right to keep your battered girlfriend within arm’s length at all times.”
“I ain’t battered,” Jenna said.
“Don’t you fucking take her out of my sight.” Yves emphasized his words with a stabbing finger that Tim had learned generally presaged violence. Not wanting a carpet dance, he pretended to let his own temper flare to back Yves down.
“Relax, assfuck. Let me treat her eye so it doesn’t get infected, and you won’t have to waste your precious fucking time driving her to the hospital.”
As Tim reached the door with Jenna, he heard a chuckle behind him. “Assfuck,” Yves repeated to himself, amused.
Tim sat Jenna on the curb, still in flex-cuffs. He returned from Bear’s rig with a first-aid kit, but she jerked her head away from him.
“Just lemme do it myself later. Y’all always screw it up anyhow.”
“Okay.” Tim knelt, bringing himself to eye level. “We think your boyfriend’s going to be involved with a hit on Walker Jameson. I want some information from you, right now, or I’m gonna go in there and arrest him and say it was on your word.”
Fear widened her eyes. Tim was surprised by his easy cruelty, but also, oddly, reassured.
“You can’t do that.”
Tim just stared at her.
“He don’t do wet work. Not no more. Wet work comes outta Vegas.”
“No shit. Can you give me a name?”
“If I wanna end up on the wrong side of the dirt.”
Tim walked her back inside and handed her off to Bear, who cut off her flex-cuffs and sat her on the couch. Tim’s Nextel vibrated, and he signaled Bear to give him a second and stepped outside again.
Guerrera’s voice came quick and excited. “I found one of Walker’s platoon-mates, right here in the VA in Westwood. Medical discharge. They shipped him home from Germany, but he had to go back into the hospital due to complications.”
Tim jotted down the name. “Great. And how’s it coming with the family?”
“I found a birth certificate so I could track down the parents. His mom’s doing a slow fade in some home up in Sylmar—”
“Dying mom’s good,” Tim mused.
“—and I’m still looking for the father.”
“Get a local unmarked, preferably females, to sit on the Sylmar nursing home in case Walker pays Mom a visit before Bear and I can get there.” Tim signed off and dialed Ian Summer, a friend who’d recently transferred to the Vegas office. He caught Ian on a stakeout and therefore eager to talk.
“Yeah, we got good intel on the AB chapter out here,” Ian said, “especially through the task force.”
Tim and Bear had worked closely with the Service-sponsored Vegas Task Force in the past, having Ian track down collateral leads for them in Nevada. He and Bear had returned enough favors to consider Ian a long-distance partner. “I heard these guys use hit men from the Vegas chapter. Do you know who the enforcers there are?”
“No, but a couple of the Metro PD guys have been keeping up files. I’ll dig into the intel this afternoon, keep an eye out, and throw you a heads-up if we catch wind of any movement. If it’s for the over-the-fence you’re dealing with, I’m sure the chief’ll be happy to toss some man-hours your way.”
Tim thanked him and headed back inside. Her legs tucked under her, Jenna sat beside Yves on the couch, lean
ing on him and teasing his hair with her fingernails. Yves looked vaguely worried, focused on Bear, who was bent over the Doberman in the corner. The dog still hadn’t roused. Tim put two and two together when Bear shook his head, tensing his mouth. “What happened to the dog?”
Yves’s eyes were gleaming. “Died of old age.”
Bear’s gaze lingered on the dog’s caved ribs, and then his jaw set, dangerously. “You think this is funny, motherfucker? You lose your temper, hit your woman, kick your dog.” He started sharply for Yves, causing him to recoil, but veered instead and headed out the door.
Tim started after him, then stopped. “Look, I have to ask. Do you want to press charges?”
Jenna went on rubbing Yves’s bare chest. “For what?”
He’d seen enough domestic violence to know that these two would probably continue to fight it out until one gave the other a street divorce, served by the business end of a .45.
Offering her a resigned nod, he left them to their marital bliss.
Chapter 21
A stray dog licked the necks of soda bottles in the recycle bin at the curb, paws pressed into the extra black bags piled beside the garbage cans. Walker looked up and down the street, then crossed to the tract house. Within a moment of his ringing, a man in his late sixties appeared at the door wearing a barbecue apron that read DON’T *&^%# WITH THE CHEF! Dense chestnut hair powdered with white capped a square-hewn face. Age loosened the skin of his powerful forearms just slightly enough to add texture, and his hands hung like lifeless slabs. The hazel eyes took in Walker with a single sweep.
“Come ’round back.” The door closed.
Walker reached across the side gate to raise the latch, then stumbled over a golden retriever all the way to the back deck, where the man awaited him at a picnic table. Wisps spiraled out of holes in the closed barbecue as it self-cleaned. Through a picture window, Walker saw two kids chasing each other in circles around a plush denim couch while an attractive woman in her forties sealed leftover chicken into neat Ziplocs. Pierce threw a rubber chew toy onto the lawn, and the dog sailed after it.
Walker sat down opposite his father. “You don’t look surprised.”
“I thought you just might be dumb enough, yeah.”
“Can’t take up a trail a year and a half later.”
“No, you can’t.” Pierce gave a dead grin. “So I guess you did what you had to do.”
Walker cast a gaze around the spacious backyard. “Nice house.”
“Real estate development. Easy gig.” Pierce didn’t smile, but the muscles of his face tensed to show amusement. “And it’s legal, mostly.”
“I’m hungry.”
“I bet.” His hand pivoted off his wrist to give an abbreviated flare of the fingers.
Constance came out, tugging her sandalwood-colored hair back into a ponytail. She spoke in a lowered voice, though the kids were inside. “Hi, Walk. I didn’t know you were out.”
“I’m not.”
The surprise froze her face for an instant, but she covered with a flat smile. “Can I bring you something?”
“He’s fine.” Pierce kept his eyes on Walker, eager to pick back up.
She withdrew, pulling the door closed behind her. She whispered something to the kids, who’d been staring out the window, and they went back to running circles.
“You got yourself in the position you’re in,” Pierce said, as if Walker had just finished moaning about his unjust fate. “You had a fine family. Didn’t give her any kids. Didn’t build shit. Look at me. I got out—did something else for a change. These children.” He shook his head, overcome by his good fortune.
“They got names?” Walker asked, mostly to break up the taped lecture.
“Bronson and Bronwyn.” He smoothed a rough palm over the wooden surface of the table, clearing the slate for the conversation at hand. “This thing. Why you’re here. It isn’t what it looked like.”
“You looked into it?”
“Course I looked into it. But I can’t do more than that. I’m on the straight and narrow now. Too much at stake. Morg poked around—he can give you a start. Talk to him.”
“Where do I find him?”
“He’ll find you. What are you gonna do?”
“What do you think I’m gonna do? I need a safe house.”
“I got a complex going off Sepulveda, by the dump. Half built, tied up in litigation.”
“What for?”
“The shit you care? We had to shut down construction. You can go live in there. Water and electricity to the model unit should work. Hell, there’s a security truck and everything. Your very own gated community. Never let it be said I don’t take care of my own.” Pierce waited for Walker to challenge the claim, but he said nothing. “You good for gear?”
“Always.”
“Good, ’cause I can’t help you there. Not no more.”
“Lend me a shirt, though?”
“Got some shit going to Salvation Army. Trash bags by the curb. Go on and dig through them.” Pierce pulled a rubber-banded roll of hundreds from the front pocket of his apron and tossed it across the table. It bounced off Walker’s shoulder and rolled on the deck. “You owe her.”
“We all owe her.” Walker dipped a shoulder and swept the roll of bills from the fine-stained wood. He studied it before shoving it into a pocket. “I can’t sit at your table, but I can do your dirty work.”
“That’s right. Our dirty work.”
“Why? You never cared about Tess.”
“I cared about you both until you turned into the total fuckups your mother raised while I was away. Still, it’s a point of principle. Tess was my blood. You don’t let your blood get fucked with. Something you could stand to learn.”
The cash bulged uncomfortably in Walker’s pocket. “Three grand. Tess needed just three grand to move states with the kid. Why didn’t you help?”
“What do you think? I’m still in the game?” He ran his tongue across his teeth, bulging his upper lip. “Tess never was an ace with a checkbook. You start a family, you gotta have your priorities. Save your money in case maybe a kid gets sick. Instead she blows it on her hair-trigger brother in the clink.”
“What do you mean?”
“Your appeals, the attorney. You didn’t think it was free?” A smile cracked his face. “Oh, you didn’t know. You didn’t want to know.”
Finally Walker said, “She said you paid.”
Pierce was grinning, his face vibrant from the realization. “She put every cent she had and a few she didn’t into your defense lawyer’s pocket. That’s why she couldn’t afford a new liver for Spanky. So don’t come bitchin’ to me like I’m the March of Dimes.”
Walker studied the red and blue plastic toys littering the sandbox by the steps, the Wacky Wiggle hose laying limp on the rich green strips of rolled sod.
Pierce kept carrying on the argument alone. “Yeah, well, guess what you win when you complain?” He held up his hand, thumb and fingers forming a zero. “It wasn’t my job to do a damn thing. Not with where I was with my career then. Your mother and I worked it out. That woman never kept her word. Not a day in her life. The queen martyr. Only woman I’ve ever known who’d rather open a vein than fry a fuckin’ egg.” He stood, tapped a fist on the table like a judge dismissing a case. “I’ll get you the keys.”
Walker waited for his face to stop burning, but on it went. He kept an impassive expression in place, heavy like a welder’s mask. And then, slowly, gradually, he started to believe the mask.
“Who are you?” The boy stood in the threshold, tugging the sliding door so it knocked against him at intervals. Fair hair, light blue eyes, pug nose—the kid looked like a JCPenney model.
Walker studied him, then cleared his throat. “I’m—”
“An old friend,” Pierce said, appearing behind Bronson and ushering him inside, large hands encompassing the narrow shoulders. Walker stood and caught the airborne keys. The circle tag of the key ring had an a
ddress scrawled in black ink. Walker memorized it and left the incriminating tag on the picnic table. Pierce had already vanished into the house, and somewhere one of the kids started banging “Frère Jacques” on a piano.
At Walker’s approach, the scruffy dog retreated across the driveway, where it crouched at the neighbor’s mailbox, longingly regarding the plunder he’d been forced to abandon. Walker rustled in the curbside bags and dug out a few shirts and one of his father’s outmoded court-appearance suits. Even as he drove off, the mutt remained at bay, skinny and trembling.
Chapter 22
The stumps of Marcel Deron’s arms waved in circles as he laughed. The left, which flapped like a vestigial wing, terminated midbiceps, the right two inches below the elbow, so its narrow tip squirmed above the joint like a sightless head. The medical ward at the VA Hospital, sectioned by vinyl sheets to accord each bed a four-foot buffer, housed about twenty patients, most of them grizzled survivors of wars well past. Marcel and his buddy, currently being changed by a burly orderly behind a drawn curtain, were the youngest vets Tim and Bear had encountered on the VA grounds by a good two decades. Judging from the black orbs of Marcel’s eyes and the drawl of the friend’s complaints one bed over, both soldiers had been easing their pain with a steady stream of morphine. The sheets, strung on overhead tracks like massive shower curtains, offered an illusion of privacy, but the various patients’ smells and sounds pervaded the ward.
“You think that was a war?” Marcel answered Bear with a snicker. “That was a corporate action. Look at me.” Wearing a mock kung fu expression, he arranged his stumps into a martial arts pose, then chuckled. “Half of me’s still MIA. And what for? Liberating Fallujah. Is it even liberated? Hey, Mikey? Is Fallujah liberated yet?”
“Fuck if I know,” a voice returned from the far side of the partition sheet, picking up the well-worn routine. “But Nafar ain’t.”
“Nafar? Why you talkin’ ’bout Nafar?”
“That’s where I left my fucking leg.”
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