and there were very few cars.
'Get the wheelchair,' Church ordered.
Diego got out of the Escalade and started to unload a wheelchair from the back luggage area.
'Hey, Scully. Check it out,' Church said happily. 'This fucking coaster goes over sixty miles an hour. It's not quite as fast as Goliath or Viper, but those two run on pipe ramps. You gotta appreciate retro when it comes to the great coasters. You feel me, homes?'
I didn't answer.
I felt the back door open and then Diego pulled me out of the SUV. My blisters were killing me, my body bruised and broken. When they yanked me, I let out an agonized scream.
Somebody shoved an old sock into my mouth and the next thing I knew, I was being loaded into the wheelchair. A smelly red blanket was thrown over me and tucked under my chin. I was starting to shiver and hoped I wasn't going into shock.
Church pulled out his cell and hit redial. 'We're here,' he said. 'Get Juan and Ramon to check the refit shed under the ride. It's usually empty after six. We'll be in the park in a few.'
He hung up, then took the handles on the wheelchair and began to push me across the parking lot. 'Man, I love this place,' he rambled. 'Put in my first real work here. Shanked two North Hollywood Razas under this bitch. My 'blood in' ritual. After that, I was bueno por vida.' He tapped the back of my head. 'You know por vida, Scully? Means 'for life.' Once I shanked those two dirtbags, nobody in my set ever had the balls to fuck with me. From then on, I was a designated hitter.'
We stopped in front of a chain-link fence, which had been pre-cut. Diego and Cisneros pried it open and bent it back, then the three of them picked up the chair and handed it roughly through the opening in the fence with me still sitting in the damn thing. Then they lifted the chair over the curb on a concrete drainage sluiceway and set it down again. Church started us rolling and suddenly we were moving way too fast down the sides of the steep drainage ditch.
'Whooooeeee!' Church sang out as the chair picked up speed, rocketing down the forty-five-degree side of the culvert with him, riding the back, holding the handles.
I could hear the heels on his cycle boots scraping on the pavement as he skidded along behind, holding on, trying to keep the chair from tipping over. I almost fell out twice, but Church kept me upright as we finally rolled out and came to a stop on the mossy, weed-choked floor of the decommissioned spillway.
'You know, back when I was a TG I used to think if I hadda die, it should be on this fucking coaster. Ride one of those new California-style PTC fiberglass cars right off the track and out into space. Take a hundred and fifteen foot drop to the ground. What a cool way to cross the border, know what I'm sayin'? All these years later and you're gonna get to live my dream, homes.'
Chapter 52
As they wheeled me through an underground drainage tunnel, Mike's flashlight played along the walls where somebody had painted the names of the various coaster rides in white paint next to metal ladders that led up to the catch drains above. We passed Viper and Superman the Escape, and kept moving along the damp tunnel until we finally stopped under Colossus. Church left us in the tunnel and scrambled up the ladder.
'Okay, it's clear,' he called down a moment after he disappeared. 'Hand el pito up.' I was pulled out of the chair and lifted, still handcuffed. Again, I cried out through the sock in my mouth but my screams were muffled. My head bumped on the narrow drain opening as I was pulled up into a large, four-foot-high, drainage catch basin. Church had the drain cover off and they pulled me out of the basin, up into the cool night air. I looked around and saw we were underneath Colossus's huge wooden scaffolding. Trains roared by overhead, the screams of the coaster riders creating a deafening wall of noise.
'Get him up there,' Church ordered, pointing at a set of wooden stairs. They led to a platform and a large warehouse building.
I felt hands yank me upright. My legs barely worked as they hustled me over pavement littered with trash that had dropped from the coaster above. Then I was carried up three flights of metal stairs, across a concrete stage, through a door, and into a large basketball-court-size building full of broken cars from Colossus. The fiberglass coaches sat on five or six fingers of track, each one with a service order stuck to its front. Some were waiting to be worked on, others were marked to be returned to the ride.
Brian Devine was waiting for us with three gang-bangers in white wife-beaters, none of whom I recognized. The vatos all had ornate VSL tattoos high on the back of their necks identifying them as veteranos.
'Get the sock outta his mouth,' Devine said.
Somebody ripped it out and pushed me down onto the floor. The lieutenant grabbed a dirty metal folding chair, planted the legs over my body then straddled the chair, looking down over its back into my upturned face.
'Okay, tough guy, you're about to take the final exam.' His manic eyes flashed dangerously. 'Don't screw with me here, 'cause I have it in my power to make the end of your life fucking gruesome.'
'I know everything, Brian. I know about you guys killing Juan Iglesia to get the bus company, how you dumped Ron Torgason over the beer contest. I got the whole playbook. It's already been turned over to PSB. You can kill me, but it doesn't make this go away,'
'Really.' He looked at me, a slight smile flickering on his flat, hard face. 'These last two days I've been on you and your wife like a coat of blue paint. I hung a wire in your house, put taps on your phone. When you shit, I hear the dookies splash. I been following you and your dingy wife around for almost two days. You ain't told nobody shit. You're both dead people. All I need from you before I croak you, is your case notes.'
'My wife's already gone to Tony. Killing her does nothing for you. You're done, man.'
'Your wife's so fucked up, nobody's gonna believe anything she tells 'em. But just to be safe, after I'm done with you, I always planned to swing by and pay her a visit. She's some damn fine hot-lookin' trim. Maybe she gets some sublime Devine before I dump her. I can make it easy or tough. But you stonewall me and I'll take both of you down in pieces.'
'The department knows. There's no place you can hide where they won't find you.'
'Tell that to Bin Laden,' Devine growled. 'Who else besides your wife?'
'Captain Calloway.'
He studied me for a long time before he said, 'Bullshit.' Then he smiled. 'You're bluffin'. I like to clean up loose ends, but you know what, it doesn't really matter. After tonight, I'm gone. Gonna ditch my nagging wife, kill yours, and split this fucked-up country for good.'
Devine stood up out of the chair and looked at Mike Church. 'I'm done here. He's all yours, muchacho. Make it hurt.' Then he turned and walked out of the shed without looking back.
Church pulled the metal chair off of me, yanking me to my feet. My body screamed in pain. They muscled me toward one of the repaired coaster cars with a 'Return to ride' tag wired to the safety bar. The car sat on a wooden track, which ran through a canvas curtain on the east wall of the shed. Cisneros and Jose Diego were already working to remove the bolts from the safety bar that secured passengers into the seat. After they freed the bar arm, they placed it back into the housing without tightening the bolts.
I could see the plan. Put me on the coaster and let me take a twelve-story drop with no safety bar. I was about to be Magic Mountain's next unfortunate accident victim. Devine would try and kill Alexa before she got our file to Tony. The fact that Captain Calloway knew probably wouldn't matter because by the time the LAPD could mobilize, Lt. Devine would be long gone, cruising the coast of Mexico in his brand-new, million-dollar sport fisher. Alexa, Scout, and I had solved the mystery, but were half a beat too slow.
'Get him in the car,' Church ordered.
Two of the VSL veteranos picked me up and set me into the coach. They covered my bound hands with a jacket and shoved a ball cap on my head, then pushed the car out of the repair building through the curtain. I looked down and saw that the track I was on was about twenty feet off the ground. I was weak, but decided that once I was a few hundred yards from the repair shed, I would find a way to lunge out of the car and drop down the two flights to the ground below. If I didn't land on my head, the worst I would get is some broken bones. However, my
