studied me like a bug pinned to a board. In his right hand, he was holding an Arwen 37, which I knew from a week of intense riot training at the Academy, was special-issue police department ordnance. The Arwen fires two-inch- long, cylindrical, baton rounds made of hard black rubber. According to the LAPD information office, we use these weapons exclusively to quell 'incidents of civil unrest,' which is code for riot gun.
Suddenly Church backed away and pointed it at me, saying, 'Check it out, homes.'
He fired from only fifteen feet away. The two-inch-long, hard rubber cylinder flew out of the tube barrel and hit my shoulder like a Mike Tyson right. I let out an agonized moan. The Arwen is supposed to be a nonlethal alternative weapon, but our Academy instructors had told us if fired at point-blank range to the head, it could be deadly.
'Get ready to have a bad last forty minutes,' Church said maliciously.
That's when the lights that were cooking me suddenly went out, taking away the wall of blistering heat and leaving the booth dimly illuminated by two small overhead bulbs.
'Turn those things back on,' Church ordered Cisneros, who was standing by the door. 'I'm cooking me some roasted pig here.'
My stomach suddenly lurched and I projectile-vomited the booze Alexa and I had consumed earlier in premature celebration. Some of it splattered on Mike Church.
'Sorry about that,' I muttered weakly.
Church stepped forward and hit me with the butt of the gun, bringing it down sideways across my head. It opened a gash on my cheek and I almost went out, fought for consciousness, managed to hang on.
'We've got to wait for Brian,' Cisneros said. 'He doesn't want to mess him up too bad.'
'Fuck Brian. Turn the lights back on,' Church demanded.
'If we take him out to Six Flags, we don't want the cops to find no body that's all charred and shit. That won't look like no accident,' a third man argued. My eyes, slow to adjust in the sudden gloom, could barely identify another VSL banger, Jose Diego, on the far side of the room.
'You two are fucking pussies,' Church said, but the lights stayed off.
For the next twenty minutes, Church never let go of the Arwen 37 and, just to amuse himself, he would occasionally turn and say 'Hey, Scully, here comes the Goodyear blimp.' Then he'd fire another rubber baton at me. The round would strike my body, breaking blood vessels under my skin, leaving big, blue-red marks wherever it hit. Each time he fired, I almost lost consciousness.
During this ugly demonstration of riot gun effectiveness, I had one coherent thought. If the Arwen was what had knocked me out when I was jogging on the Venice bike path, then it was also probably the murder weapon Alexa and I had been looking for. I wondered if Church used it at point-blank range to kill his own father in the shower, and later to incapacitate Ron Torgason before drowning him in the swimming pool. The hard rubber batons, if fired to the head at close range, would probably result in the kind of skull trauma we'd seen in both autopsy photos. But even as I had this thought, I knew it came way too late to do me much good.
I don't know how long I was forced to endure this punishment, but sometime later Brian Devine walked into the paint bay wearing jeans and a police windbreaker. He took the riot gun out of Mike's hand and smiled. 'You really love this thing, don't ya, Churchy? If you behave, maybe I'll let you keep it.'
He checked the clip, looked over at my bruised body, then smiled. 'Man, this may be the new American record. How many did you fire at him?'
'Lieutenant, this is coming apart,' I croaked. 'The department knows about everything. You can't be dumb enough to partner up with these idiots.'
' 'Cept I'm not the idiot taped to a chair,' he said.
'They got fifteen million. I hope you got a fair cut of that,' hoping to produce some trouble. It didn't work.
'Nice try,' he said. 'But I'm a very happy citizen. Got my boat all stocked and ready to go in Mexico. Right now, we're just in the loose-end business. Pisses me off I didn't close your account years ago. Would've saved me a lot of trouble.' Then he turned and fired the Arwen at me from ten feet away. The hard rubber round hit my forehead and I was out. I never even heard the riot gun's retort.
Chapter 51
'Colossus is still the largest dual track wooden coaster in the world,' Mike Church was saying.
'Yep. That's one sweet ride, homes,' somebody on my right agreed.
As I came to, I realized my hands were bound. My shirt was back on, but blisters were starting to form on my chest and, of all places, under my arms. My forehead throbbed where the rubber baton had knocked me out. I sat in agony playing possum.
'They built that monster way back in the seventies.' Church was speaking again. 'It was already old school by the time I started banging out here. When I was a TG, I sold seeds and stems in the midway. I was just eleven. When I was fifteen, I even got a summer job here and worked the maintenance shed. I learned where the underground service tunnels are, how to sneak on rides. Still got my old park maintenance badge.' Through slits in my eyelashes, I saw him hold up a plastic-encased ID card dangling from a cord around his neck. 'Ever since that summer I don't never even have to pay to get in this place, 'cause I know where the old drainage culvert opens up that runs under the park.'
I opened my eyes a bit wider. I was in the back of somebody's big SUV. A Cadillac Escalade. Gray leather. Lots of video extras. I didn't move, trying to scope out the car without turning my head. The same three were in here with me. Tyler Cisneros and Jose Diego were on either side of me in the back. Church was driving, spinning out happy memories from his banging days at Tragic Magic.
'You won't believe how it was back then,' he went on. 'Back before these dumb park fucks realized they had a youth violence problem. This place was supposed to be a gang demilitarized zone, but there were asesinos out here, so you better believe bad shit went down every weekend.'
Church put on his blinker, then turned off the highway into a parking lot. Out of the corner of my eye I glimpsed acres of parked cars. We pulled up to a booth to get a parking ticket. I kept quiet, looking for any chance to alter the odds.
'Busy out here tonight,' I heard Church say to the booth operator. I knew they had good radio communications between all park employees and was about to try something when I suddenly felt a knifepoint press between my ribs. I looked right and saw Tyler Cisneros shake his head sadly.
'No lo hace,' he said softly.
'Lot Four. Follow the yellow line,' the ticket taker instructed.
'Thanks,' Church answered. The Escalade started moving again. 'Fuck Lot Four,' he said. 'I want to go to the north end of Six, way over by the fence.'
'This guy's awake,' Cisneros said.
Church turned and looked back at me. 'Don't go cowboy on us, Scully. Keep it cool, dude.'
We drove in silence for a minute before Church craned his head and looked up at Colossus. 'Man, look at that cbingada/' The giant coaster loomed a hundred and twenty-five feet above us. Occasionally, a trainload of joyriders would streak past, screaming in delight, as the wheels rattling on the hardwood tracks set up a thunderous roar.
Church pulled out a cell and dialed while he drove. 'We're here,' he said. 'We're gonna take him in through my special way. You got your guys ready?' There was a long beat. 'I'm just asking. Don't have a fucking aneurism.' He closed his cell. 'What an asshole.' There were a lot of assholes in this equation, but I figured he had to be talking about Lieutenant Devine.
I tried to come up with an alternate plan. It felt like my hands were secured with plastic riot cuffs. I was in such pain that I had to fight not to cry out every time the Escalade lurched or bounced over one of the parking lot's speed bumps.
'The last drop is one hijo de puta,' Church enthused. We were cruising the north lot while Church looked for a suitable parking space. 'Hundred and fifteen feet, straight down. Hey, Scully, hope you like coasters, man.' I didn't answer. Church laughed as he nosed the Escalade into an empty slot. We were at the far end of the new north lot
