known and feared.
Abby didn’t leave her car in the lot. She didn’t want anyone seeing the Mazda and remembering it from Andrea’s neighborhood. Instead she motored down another block and found a space at the curb, then walked briskly to the bar, her purse in hand with the gun inside.
Fast Eddie’s was a clamorous hellhole. Some kind of noxious hip-hop was banging out of the cheap sound system. A woman who was high on more than life gyrated on a pool table while some guys yelled catcalls, and others shouted at her to get off the table so they could play pool.
Those guys weren’t Scorpions, though. The Scorpions were seated together in a corner of the bar, ignoring the bedlam.
She knew them at once, not from the tattoos, which she couldn’t make out at a distance, but from the air of masculine camaraderie that defined any wolf pack.
There were two dozen of them occupying a nest of corner tables. They wore their colors, sleeveless leather jackets with scorpion insignias on the back. A few female hangers-on, ranging in age from jailbait to over-the-hill, petted and fondled and looked bored. The men were loud and drunkenly obnoxious, their blurry stares daring any patron to start something. It was a safe bet that every one of them was packing a gun.
Although Santa Ana was largely Hispanic, the Scorpions were all Anglos. Most gangs formed along racial lines. Probably this one had originated as a way of defending a slice of this miserable turf from the encroachment of immigrants.
Abby went up to the bar and got the attention of the slow-moving, heavy-lidded bartender. He was wiping a glass with a hand towel that looked dirtier than the dishware. On the wall behind him was a sign:
PARKING FOR HARLEYS ONLY-ALL OTHERS WILL BE SHOT.
Fast Eddie’s, it would appear, was not aiming to reproduce the social atmosphere of the Algonquin Roundtable.
“What?” the bartender said. His lower lip was set in a permanent curl.
“Vodka rocks.”
He grunted and poured. She slapped a bill on the counter and told him to keep the change, advice he accepted without gratitude.
Abby wasn’t a believer in drinking on duty, but if she’d ordered anything nonalcoholic, she might have called attention to herself. She sipped the drink. The cheap vodka burned with a sour aftertaste.
Her barstool afforded a good view of the Scorpions’ conclave in the mirror behind the bar. She watched the rowdy crew, her gaze moving from one man to the next, dismissing anyone without a tattoo on his neck.
She spotted him at the second of the three tables. She hadn’t expected to feel anything when she saw him again, and her reaction surprised her. She felt a sudden jolt like a fist in the stomach. Her eyes watered. She brushed them dry with the back of her hand.
For just a moment she was trapped in the bedroom again, taking fire from front and back, with no way out and only five bullets in her gun.
She shook off the memory. She took another sip of vodka, which wasn’t tasting quite so bad now, and studied the man who’d tried to kill her.
He was in his mid-twenties, muscular and hard-eyed, but his face was softer than it should have been, almost feminine in its contours. He reminded her a little of Leon Trotman, who had stalked the schoolteacher in Reseda until Abby put him back in jail.
She had nearly killed Leon. And she hadn’t had anything personal against him.
She watched him listlessly downing a stein. He was flanked by two sidekicks. One of them looked sleepy, and the other one looked restless. His two partners in crime, she guessed.
The man she recognized was paying little attention to his pals. His eyes were downcast and worried. No doubt he was concerned about his future. He’d failed in his assignment. Abby didn’t know the Scorpions’ penalty for failure, but she doubted it was anything to look forward to.
The rest of the gang weren’t shunning him, though. Either they were exceptionally loyal or they didn’t know he’d screwed the pooch. The best guess was they didn’t know about the assignment at all. The whole thing had probably been kept on the q.t.
Abby had spent much of the ride from L.A. reconstructing how the hit was arranged. Reynolds grew up in Santa Ana and had been the D.A. there. At some point, either in his youth or on the job, he came into contact with the Scorpions. Probably he did them some favors as a D.A. In exchange, they would do his dirty work. Every successful leader needed operatives at the grassroots level, and not all the operatives were the fresh-faced variety she’d seen at the campaign office.
The three men she was looking at weren’t old enough to have been in the gang when Reynolds was a district attorney, let alone when he was a kid. Most likely, his personal allegiance was to one or more of the older members, the ones in leadership positions now. In a sensitive matter it would be smart to limit the people who knew the details. Reynolds probably approached one of the leaders in the bike shop, and that man in turn arranged the hit with a phone call.
She nursed her vodka for long time, brushing off occasional come-ons from other patrons and ignoring the bartender’s perpetual scowl. She was patient. The man with the tattoo was drinking a lot of beer, and as her dad used to say, you don’t buy beer, you only rent it.
Not long past midnight the guy finally left the table to use the can. Abby vacated her barstool and followed him into the alcove where the restrooms were located. She pretended to use the pay phone while keeping an eye on the door to the men’s room.
After only a minute, he emerged. She doubted he’d had time to wash his hands. Drunk, homicidal-and unhygienic. This guy had it all.
She stepped away from the phone, timing the move so he collided with her from behind.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “Didn’t see you there.”
“Should watch where you’re going,” he growled.
He started to walk on.
“I wasn’t thinking,” Abby said. “Guess I’ve had too much to drink.”
This piqued his interest. An intoxicated woman was an easy lay, or so all males assumed. He turned to look at her. His glance rested only briefly on her face before checking her more important assets.
“My name’s Sandi,” she said. “Sandi with an i.”
She’d made up the name on the spot. It wasn’t one of her aliases, and she had no fake ID in her purse to back it up, but she didn’t expect to be showing anyone her creds tonight.
He burped. A real charmer. “Dylan,” he said.
“That’s a cool tattoo.”
His hand went to his neck, tracing the insectile shape. “More’n a tattoo,” he said. “It’s a…” He searched for the word. “You know, insignia.”
“You mean, like a sign?”
“Sign, yeah. It’s a logo. Our trademark.”
“Whose trademark?”
He shook his head, pissed off at her ignorance. “Shit, you live around here, you’ve gotta know.”
“I live in Mission Viejo.” A safe suburban town to the south.
“Mission fucking Viejo?” He hawked up a gob and spat in the general direction of a potted plant. “What the fuck you doing here?”
She showed him a provocative smile. “Looking for adventure.”
He considered this, his narrowed eyes coldly thoughtful. “You might find more’n you bargained for.”
“That so?”
“Yeah, it’s so.” He seemed to reach a decision, and the decision was that he wasn’t horny tonight. “Best skitter on home, Li’l Bo Peep. Ain’t none of your sheep around here. You’re way out of your element.”
He took a step away.
“It’s not the first time,” she said.
The words stopped him. He gave her a grudging glance. “You been here before?”
“Not in this place. But I’ve been… around.”
“Have you, now?” He found this amusing. “Like, where?”
