They pull into the parking lot.
A warehouse complex in the canyon.
Old C trains scattered around.
Empty. Quiet.
Crowe’s Charger is already there.
Chon lies on the floor of the van behind Brian. He pushes the shotgun barrel into the back of the seat. “You feel that, Brian? It will go right through this seat into your spine. The best you can hope for is a helper monkey.”
“I feel it.”
“Pull up beside him and get out.”
Chon feels the van slow and then stop.
The door opens.
Brian gets out.
Crowe rolls down his window
And shoots Brian in the head.
240
“I was aware,” Patterson says, “that your mother married me for my money. I was in my forties, she was in her twenties and beautiful. I knew-everybody knew. I married her anyway.”
O sits and listens.
Patterson continues, “I knew that I was her second husband but wouldn’t be her last. It was all right with me-I was happy just to borrow her beauty for a few years.”
Borrow, O wonders, or rent?
“We didn’t have a prenuptial agreement,” Patterson says. “My family was furious, my lawyers more so, but Kim wouldn’t hear of it. I knew what I was doing, but money has never been my problem in life. One agreement that we did have, however, is that there would be no children.”
O winces.
“I was too old,” Patterson says, “and didn’t want to cut that ridiculous figure of the middle-aged father trying to keep up with a toddler. But there was more to it. I knew the marriage would never last and, as a child of divorce myself, I didn’t want to inflict that on another child.”
But you did, O thinks.
“I knew that she was unfaithful,” Patterson says. “She would be gone for long, unexplained hours. She would take little trips. I knew but I didn’t want to know, so I never pressed the issue. Until she informed me that she was pregnant.”
“With me,” O says.
Patterson nods.
241
Ben follows them into the study, the walls lined with bookshelves filled with psychology texts, sociological studies, economic histories, evidence of their belief that the truth of the world is contained in books, if only you could read enough of them, and the right ones.
Now Ben wants a truth that can’t be found in books and says, “Please, I need to know.”
“We came here in the fresh bloom of our idealism,” Diane explains. “We thought we would change the world.”
Ben’s about to object to the whole “Diamonds and Rust” monologue he senses is coming, but then his mother starts talking about a guy giving away tacos.
242
Chon watches Crowe get out of the car and stand over Brian’s body, making sure.
There’s not a lot of doubt. Brian’s lifeless eyes stare up at the moon and a pool of blood forms beneath his head.
Chon slides the van door open and drops to the ground. Belly-crawls around until he sees Crowe swinging his gun at the sound.
Crowe sees him and fires.
But Chon has already dropped into a low crouch. Can’t shoot the man, can’t take a chance on killing him, so he drops the shotgun, lunges, and tackles Crowe at the waist, driving him into the sand.
Fifty-eight thousand fucking times he practiced on the sand south of here, down on Silver Strand, but he’s weak now, and rusty, so he lets
Crowe’s gun hand come around as he tries to jam the gun barrel into Chon’s head and the shot is deafening, a roar like a big wave going off and Chon feels the burn and his head roaring as he gets his knee up and drives Crowe’s arm to the sand and traps it there, but Crowe is big and strong and he pounds his left fist into Chon’s ribs, then the side of his head, bangs his hips up and bridges his back, trying to buck Chon off, but Chon slides up and gets his other knee on Crowe’s left forearm and now he kneels on the man’s arms, feels the blood running hot down his face, his pulse slamming in his neck and he takes his thumbs and presses them into Crowe’s eyes.
Chon’s forearms quiver with exertion, he’s trying to hold it until Crowe screams and drops the gun and yells, “Enough!”
Chon grabs Crowe’s pistol and gets off him, holding the gun on him.
Crowe rolls onto his stomach, presses his palms into his eyes, and moans, “I can’t see, I can’t see.”
Chon walks over to his shotgun and picks it up. He feels blood seeping out of his left leg where the wounds have opened up from the fight. When he comes back, Crowe is on his knees, trying to get up.
Chon kicks him back down.
Presses the shotgun barrel into his neck.
“Who do you work for?”
“They’ll kill me.”
“They’re not your worry right now,” Chon says. “I am. Who do you work for?”
Crowe shakes his head.
Chon’s out of wind and his leg starts to throb. He says, “They wouldn’t die for you.”
Crowe gives him a name.
It hits Chon like a blow to the chest.
He leans over and says, “Tell me the truth. Did you kill those two kids?”
Crowe nods.
Chon pulls the trigger.
Sorry, Ben.
He drags Crowe’s body over by Hennessy’s, then puts the shotgun in Hennessy’s hands and lays the pistol by Crowe’s.
Justice or revenge.
Either way.
Taking his knife, Chon cuts a strip off his shirt and presses it against the open wound on his leg.
Then he notices that it’s raining.
